


Full Count

by Ink_Dancer



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mild Homophobia (typical for 2020), Minor Violence, Now Complete!, along with about 2 dozen other marvel characters, and they play baseball and fall in love, baseball AU, it's Steve's pov btw, steve and bucky are players on the brooklyn dodgers baseball team, third person steve pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:15:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 50,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24980665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ink_Dancer/pseuds/Ink_Dancer
Summary: Full Count: a baseball term referring to a situation during a player’s at bat where there are three balls and two strikes on him. As this is the maximum one can have without either walking (base on balls) or striking out, this is generally expected to be a very stressful situation for both the pitcher and the batter. The pitch that is then thrown on this count is expected to be the one that decides the batter’s fate, and carries with it a certain expectation of change. It’s known as the payoff pitch: it’s the payoff for a long wait.or: a stucky au that takes place in the world of Major League Baseball, in which Bucky is a catcher, Steve is a closing pitcher, and their lives are stuck in a perpetual full count—until life throws the payoff pitch and they end up on the same Dodgers team.EDIT: Now complete.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter/Angie Martinelli
Comments: 59
Kudos: 117





	1. Preseason (Glossary)

Welcome. This is not the first chapter; this is a cheat-sheet for the basics of baseball that you might want to have a grasp on. Note: I don’t think it’s strictly necessary to have more than the most basic knowledge of baseball to read this fic, and as the author, I think I have the authority. After all, you don’t need to understand baseball to know that Bucky and Steve are gonna fall in love by the end. (Also, I tried to include explanations in the work where necessary.) 

**_tldr: If you don’t care about/don’t think you need to know about the specifics of baseball, already know the specifics of baseball, or want to learn on your own or whenever it becomes relevant, skip this chapter. You can always come back if you find something confusing._ **

So if you’re confused about something, come and look here for your answers. Or use Google, if you want. (If you don’t find the answer, leave a comment about what’s confusing you and I’ll both respond to explain and add an explanation for future reference.) Also here, you’ll find a rundown of the characters included in this fic and what their roles/team positions are.

**BASICS:**

Baseball is an extremely prevalent component of American culture, and even people who don’t care for baseball know the gist. So I’m assuming none of you live under a rock, I’m assuming you’ve all seen a baseball field and know what it looks like, and know the difference between the outfield and infield, how many bases there are, what a dugout is, the general concept of hitting, and how many outs there are. Those are the kind of questions I suggest going to Wikipedia for, or ask in a comment and I’ll directly respond to them.

I also will throw around some jargon surrounding these simpler topics: homer/home run, triple/single/double, groundout, etc. If you’re confused, look it up or ask.

Into slightly more complicated stuff—there are other ways you can get onto a base besides hitting the ball. Because the game is already so goddamn long, if a pitcher throws too many pitches (four) that aren’t within the realm of being potentially hittable—known as balls, and the “realm” is known as the strikezone—then you get to take first base, called a walk or technically “base on balls.” You also go directly to first if you get hit by a pitch. (If you do get hit by a pitch, by the way, 90% of the time this is an accident. It’s against the rules to intentionally hit a batter with a pitch. However, it does happen, and it’s usually very obvious when it is—it’s retaliation for something, and it’s usually pretty dumb. If an umpire suspects that a pitcher hit the batter intentionally, they can and will eject the pitcher from the game.)

Now, when you’re batting, there are multiple ways you can be called “out.” You’ve heard of “three strikes you’re out”—this brings us back to the strikezone. Pitchers are expected to throw good pitches that could ostensibly be hit by the batter, although their goal is to have that  _ not _ happen. As such, there is an imaginary box superimposed (but imagined) in the air next to a batter, reaching vertically from his chest to his knees and horizontally about an arms-length away from him (but not too close to him). Again, if pitches are thrown outside of this imaginary box—as determined by the  _ very human _ umpire whose job it is to call the game behind home plate—then they’re balls. If they’re  _ inside _ the box, they’re strikes. They’ll also be strikes, regardless of location, if the batter swings and misses. And if the batter swings and makes contact but the ball ricochets backward or otherwise in foul territory (which is essentially just…not on the field), this will be a strike as well—at least until he has two strikes on him, at which point a foul ball will not count against him.

If you get three strikes in any combination (one foul, one looking, one swinging, or any combination thereof except foul for the third), you’ll be out. If you do manage to hit the ball and get it in play, you can still be out. If anybody on the field catches the ball before it hits the ground, you’re out. If somebody picks up the ball and steps on the base you’re trying to get to, you’re out. If they pick it up and throw it to their teammate, who then steps on that same base, you’re out. And if they pick up the ball or get thrown the ball and they tag  _ you _ with the ball in their glove, you’re out.

It’s more complicated than that—there are like a bajillion random situations where outs and hits get more confusing—but that’s the important bit. You get three outs every half-inning, so let’s back up and unpack that. Baseball is divided into nine innings. In each inning, both teams are given an opportunity to hit, and as such, an opportunity to score. When one team hits, the other team is in the field on defense, so each inning is split in half, into “top” and “bottom” (yes, I know): in one half, one team hits and the other fields, and in the other, they switch. Which half is designated to which team is determined by who the field belongs to—if the Boston Red Sox are playing the New York Yankees and they are in Boston, then the Red Sox field first, in the top halves of the innings, and hit second, in the bottom halves. This is because whoever hits  _ last _ , in the bottom half of the ninth inning, has an advantage as that is the last opportunity to score. Now, back to outs—in each of these half innings, the teams can only keep sending players up to hit as long as they have less than three outs. Once those three outs are recorded, everybody switches, and we do it again. 

**TEAM ROSTER AND THE FIELD:**

Now, moving out of the basics and into the nuance. Baseball is played with nine players on the field, and in numerical order around the horn, it goes: pitcher, catcher, first baseman, second baseman, third baseman, shortstop (between second and third), left fielder, center fielder, right fielder. (Left and right fielders are designated from the perspective of home plate; sort of “house left” and “house right” for you theater folks, making the players actually in “stage right” and “stage left” respectively.) Each of these positions have specific jobs, and the specific skills required for each makes certain players more suited for one position than another. The Dodgers roster of “position players” (that is, not pitchers) in this fic is as follows:

Bucky Barnes - Catcher

James Rhodes - First Base

Tony Stark - Second Base

Bruce Banner - Third Base

Sam Wilson - Shortstop

Clint Barton - Left Field

Pietro Maximoff - Center Field

Scott Lang - Right Field

So, I didn’t include pitchers. Pitching is more complicated, but to put it simply, we’ll need to back up. Major League teams (like the Dodgers in this fic) are allowed a 25-man roster during the regular season (aka, not playoffs). I don’t believe I have that many characters on the team (I think I’ve got 22), but the biggest reason that rosters are so large is because pitchers are very fragile and you need a lot of them. Most teams have five starting pitchers, who begin each game and ideally last six innings or so. These pitchers tend to have more varied types of pitches (aka they’re good at throwing a few different ways) and tend to have more endurance. The starting pitchers for my fictional Dodgers are:

Luke Cage, Danny Rand, Stephen Strange, Peter Quill, and Miles Morales. (I dunno why I picked these specific characters, it seemed fun.)

There are, however,  _ other _ pitchers. These pitchers come in when the starters get tired, or give up too many runs too quickly, or are simply done for the day, and they’re referred to as “relievers” or “relief pitchers,” for pretty obvious reasons. The Dodgers relief pitchers are:

Peter Parker, Frank Castle, Gabe Jones, Luis Peña (who doesn’t have a canon last name so I gave him his actor’s), and Steve Rogers, who is a closer.

Closers are a specific kind of relief pitcher, which is why I gave it to Steve. Closers, as I explain in the fic, work almost exclusively in the last inning, and ideally only throw until they get three outs. They are used almost  _ exclusively _ to defend and lock down a slim lead (less than 3 runs), which is then called a “save”, fun fact. Closers are usually pitchers who throw fast, and they don’t usually have great endurance. However, the real skill they have is ability to perform under pressure. Defending a slim lead in baseball is intense: it’s statistically relatively easy to overcome a lead of less than three at the very last minute. As such, closers must have that quality. And because of this, sometimes they’re used in other circumstances—during a tie, to buy some time for their team to potentially gain the lead later; or during tense moments in playoff games that don’t qualify as a close/save, for example.

I have a couple of other folks on this Dodgers team: T’Challa, who is a utility player—that is, he can play basically any position, like a Swiss Army knife athlete. This is actually an extremely important position on a team; baseball players get hurt kind of a lot, and even when they don’t, they need to have days off because they play  _ every day _ , and it helps to have a really good utility player to pick up that slack. I also have Dum-Dum Dugan, who is another (less-skilled) utility player, and Jim Morita, who is another catcher, like Bucky. Being a catcher is an extremely taxing position, for a number of reasons, so having a second catcher is extremely common in baseball.

The final team member is Thor (don’t think I forgot him). He is the team’s Designated Hitter, or DH. This position is complicated, and I’ll get into why later. For now, all that matters is that the Dodgers play by rules where pitchers  _ do not hit _ when the team is at bat and not in the field. In their place in the lineup (as there must be nine hitters, and they’re technically supposed to be the nine fielders), the DH hits. The DH is usually somebody large and very powerful—good at hitting balls very far—but not terribly fast or athletically gifted in another way, which would make them a liability on the field. Thor kinda fits this category. We’ll get more into the complexities of the DH later.

**BASEBALL OPERATIONS AND STAFF:**

Other important characters in the Dodgers system are:

Natasha Romanoff - Dodgers’ Manager

Nick Fury - Dodgers’ General Manager

Claire Temple - Team Trainer/Doctor

Karen Page - PR/Press Agent/Spokesperson

Maria Hill - Pitching Coach

Pepper Potts - Team Owner

Also included in my brain are a few other characters as coaches, but so far, they haven’t come up. These are Happy Hogan, first base coach, and Hank Pym, third base coach—I bring them up now to explain the meanings of those titles, as I’m pretty sure I used them. Base coaches stand next to their bases (first and third) and relay instructions to the players standing on them from their manager—when to steal bases, etc. They also help because baseball fields are enormous, and runners can’t always see everything, so they help point things out. This is especially the case when players are running into third base when a ball is in play—they can’t turn around to look at the play, they have to rely on the third base coach, who is facing the field, to tell them whether it’s safe to keep running or whether to pull up at third.

The other above positions should also be explained. Natasha, who is a major character in this fic, has the unenviable job of corralling the team through day to day stuff—she’s essentially the coach who tells everybody what to do and makes the everyday decisions. She also acts as the liaison between players and the so-called “front office,” or the higher-level management of the team. Generally speaking, managers are given the most credit about whether a team does well or poorly on a day-to-day basis. Please note: as I point out in this fic, as far as I am aware, there has never been a female manager of a Major League baseball team. In fact, I don’t know of a single woman who’s ever been involved in the sport in any managerial or coaching capacity. I included women in these spots because a) I love the MCU women and I wanted to have them be involved and b) there should be more women in baseball. 

(For the record, I believe women should be able  _ play _ professional baseball, not just manage it—it’s mostly a non-contact sport, every single skill that it requires is already seen to be present in women who play softball, women have proven themselves competitive against men in baseball, and it would be  _ super _ easy to just integrate women in. Plus, women look super cute in baseball uniforms. But I don’t make the rules. For the purposes of this fic, since the MCU has an astronomical number of men, the ratios kinda worked out. So I decided to stick to the status quo for the most part.)

The aforementioned “front office” includes Nick Fury, who is the general manager. Broadly speaking, his position puts him in charge of large structural decisions—what players to acquire, which ones to trade to other teams, which ones to call up from minor leagues, etc. He and other people in that office (who are irrelevant to the fic and thus have no names or references) have pretty regular contact with Pepper, who owns the team because she’s rich and badass. I have no idea what it takes to own a baseball team, I just know that they’re expensive and usually there are a  _ lot _ of owners. Pepper isn’t referenced a ton in the fic (only a few times toward the end), not even in relation to Tony, but just know that she’s rich and badass and owns the team. 

That brings us to Claire, who features a decent amount. Her title is pretty self-explanatory—she treats injuries and helps keep the players healthy. Baseball players get hurt a  _ lot _ , so team trainers are vital. Next, Karen—hers is pretty self-explanatory. And finally, Maria Hill. She’s the only coach I’ve mentioned by name, because pitching is hard. She’s just a normal coach who specifically helps with pitching, and that’s really all that matters.

On to other important characters. The only team in this fic that is  _ fully _ made up (unlike the Dodgers, which I picked and then fictionalized—because Brooklyn and because I said so) is the Los Angeles Hydras. This team functions as the de facto villains, as should be obvious from the name. Their manager is Alexander Pierce, and the team members include random villains from various Marvel movies and shows: Erik Stevens, Heinrich Zemo, Justin Hammer, Grant Ward, and Brock Rumlow, who is the chief antagonist. (I didn’t include any outrageous villains like Thanos, because that’s lowkey stupid. I’m sure you follow my reasoning here. I also don’t know enough reasonable villains to field a full team, but it doesn’t really matter.)

**THE FULL ECOSYSTEM OF BASEBALL:**

_ All other _ teams mentioned in this fic are real teams. I included no real player names because they change fairly often and it’s a drag. However, everything that I say about these other real teams in the fic (aka, the Baltimore Orioles being an incredibly poor team, or the Tampa Bay Rays’ field being small and rather annoying to play on) is real and accurate as of 2020. 

Now, I did this because baseball is a very large and complicated ecosystem and I didn’t want to fuck it up too much ‘cuz I’m too dumb to reinvent the whole thing. That being said, adding the Hydras and moving the Dodgers back to Brooklyn necessitated some maneuvering, if you’re interested—I completely removed the Mets to make room for the Hydras in the thirty-team total (sorry, if any of y’all are Mets fans). Then I slightly reconfigured the league and division lines: moving the Dodgers back to Brooklyn and from the National League to the American League, and putting the Hydras squarely in their abandoned spot (they’re even in LA!), and then moving the Yankees into the National League to make room for the Dodgers.

What does  _ that _ mean, National and American League? Well, I said I’d come back to the DH thing, and now here we are. Major League Baseball (MLB) has thirty total teams, spread all across major cities in the contiguous United States (and exactly one team in Toronto, Canada. Just to confuse you). Oversimplified version of history: when baseball was first becoming an organized professional sport, there was stringent disagreement about some of the rules—for our purposes, the most important among them was whether pitchers should hit, and thus the existence of a Designated Hitter. To resolve it and also make things interesting, the thirty teams were split into two Leagues within the Majors—the National and American. The National League plays under the rules where pitchers have to hit, and the DH does not exist. The American League (the one I’m used to and within which I personally support a team) plays with a DH. 

Teams from the two Leagues do play each other, but inter-league play is pretty minimal. Also, the delineation of two leagues makes things easier for playoffs, which I’ll get to later. 

Even within these Leagues, because of travel expenses, all fifteen teams in each League can’t all play each other all the time. I mean, the LA Angels and the Toronto Blue Jays are in the same League, but they’re like 3000 miles apart. So, they’re split into groups based on where they are geographically, and then teams within those groups play each other most often. Within  _ both leagues _ , there are three  _ divisions _ , split up into West, Central, and East. Each division has five of the fifteen teams from each League—neat, huh? So for example, in the fic, the LA Hydras reside in the National League West, and the Brooklyn Dodgers are in the American League East.  _ Real life _ team examples: the poor Mets that I ignored are in the National League East, the real-life LA Dodgers are National League West, and the real-life Yankees are in the American League East. 

I mentioned off-hand that baseball is an organization. I don’t pretend to know what that entails—way too complicated. But part of it is that the Major League Baseball Commission exists, which governs baseball. I have no idea what they do, but I do know that they have a Commissioner, who’s like…in charge and decides when players get in trouble for things (like being violent on the field, being mean to reporters, cheating and/or doing performance enhancing drugs, etc). The Commissioner is elected by the teams' owners. In this fic, the fictional Commissioner is Jasper Sitwell. Anybody who saw  _ Winter Soldier _ will remember that he sucks; he sucks just as much in this fic.

Now we get into the nitty gritty, I guess, or maybe just random baseball facts/definitions. I’ll go over some random shit that come up in the fic, and if at the end of any chapter something confuses you, come here and look. 

**SEASON STRUCTURE:**

The baseball season is really goddamn long. There are 162 games in the regular season, from late March to the very end of September. And before the regular season starts, there’s about a month and a half of preseason (which, fun fact, happens exclusively in Arizona and Florida). Games are basically every day, with maybe two or three days off a month, depending on scheduling conflicts. Players only get one (1) break during the season that’s longer than two days, and it’s called the All-Star Break. It’s four days long. It happens in early/mid July, and it’s to allow for the All-Star teams (fan-voted “best” players in each League, to create a National and an American League team) to play each other in an exhibition game. It’s pretty dumb, and it tends to mark the unofficial halfway point of the season.

Divisions are usually won in mid- to late-September, and those decide who is guaranteed a playoff berth for the first round. Winning (or "clinching") a division is a fun game of mathematics, because you have to be enough games ahead of the second-place team—in terms of win-loss record—while having that exact same amount of games left to play in the regular season, essentially making it so that the second-place team mathematically can't catch up in the time left even if they physically could. (Random terminology: when a team is in pursuit of clinching their division, in the last few weeks of September they are "going down the stretch." It's thought that this derives from horse or car racing, when racers come out of the track's final turn and are headed down the "home stretch" or straightaway to the finish line.)

The regular season ends about when September does, and then playoffs begin. Playoffs are kinda complicated, but it comes down to this: the winners of each division automatically get playoff spots. That accounts for six beginning playoff spots—mathematically, you need eight. So, an extra four (yes, four) playoff spots go to the two teams in each League with the best win-loss records who  _ didn’t _ win their divisions. These four teams play for their League’s wild card playoff spot in a one-game playoff (which is legit insane and sooo stressful), and the winners of those two games fill the remaining two spots for the first real round of playoffs.

This first round of playoffs is called the Division Series, either the American League Division Series or the National League Division Series (ALDS or NLDS). It pits division winners against each other, and it’s a best of five playoff—win three games, and you move on. The four winners of the ALDS and NLDS move on to the Championship Series, the American League Championship Series or the National League Championship Series (ALCS or NLCS).  _ This _ series is a best of seven, so whoever wins four games wins.

Once the final two teams standing have been determined, there is one left from the National League and one left from the American League. These two teams play each other in the World Series, another best of seven series. Whoever wins is the World Series Champion, which is  _ very _ exciting and is quite difficult to achieve. Fun fact: the American League team  _ usually _ wins the World Series, and nobody’s really sure why. 

Now, throughout playoffs, home field advantage is observed based on who has  _ the _ best win-loss record. If you have home field advantage, you both start and (if it gets that far) end the series at your home ballpark. In the ALDS/NLDS, this means the first two games are at your ballpark, the next two are at your opponent’s, and the last (if need be) is back at home. In the ALCS/NLCS and the World Series, this means that the first two games are at your ballpark, the next  _ three _ are at your opponent’s, and the last two (if necessary) are back home. FYI, this requires a full day of travel between ballparks, which means that the DS’s can last up to seven days and the CS’s and World Series can last a whopping nine days.

**WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY "MAJOR LEAGUES"?**

So, in the fic, Steve and Bucky knew each other originally when they were on the same Minor League team. But in this glossary so far, all I've mentioned is Major League Baseball—so what gives? Well, all of those thirty Major League teams have to get their talented professional baseball players from somewhere, and players who are ready to play on the biggest professional stage of baseball don't just appear fully-formed out of thin air. 

So these players are acquired by teams via a draft, in which talented young players are hand-picked by team organizations. Y'know, like most other professional sports. These players are then sent to the Minor League system, where they (hopefully) play their way up to the Major Leagues by improving their skills. The Minor League teams are a "farm system" for the Major Leagues, a direct pipeline of talent. The Minors teams are owned by (the term is "affiliated with") the overarching Major League team, and as a whole, they are all collectively part of the same organization—which means that the officials of the Major League team are the ones that pay Minor League salaries, decide when they come up to the Majors, negotiate their contracts, etc.

So for example, the Portland Sea Dogs are a Minor League team that feeds to the Boston Red Sox, and they are within the same organization. The Sea Dogs are "affiliates of" the Red Sox.

Within this farm system, there are levels of how close the players are to the Majors—there's single A, double A (AA), and triple A (AAA), which go up the ladder of skillfulness in that order. All three of those teams are affiliates of whatever Major League team they're associated with. 

And that's it! Bucky and Steve met and played together on a Minor League team that was affiliated with the LA Hydras, because they were originally drafted by the Hydras when they started playing.

**QUICK FAST BASEBALL RULES:**

**Stolen bases** : I’m sure this comes up, although I’m not sure where. If you’re standing on a base and the pitcher isn’t paying attention to you, in theory, you can run and claim the next base before/while he’s pitching. You  _ have _ to go fast, because if the pitcher notices you running, they can easily throw to either basemen and pick you off—or, if the catcher notices first, they’ll catch the pitch and then try to throw you out immediately after, which happens quite a lot. But stealing a base is great if you’re speedy enough—it puts you closer to home, no hits required. 

[Fun fact: some people try to steal  _ home _ , albeit extremely rarely. It requires a left-handed pitcher (they stand facing the other way) and a left-handed batter (they stand facing you, and thus will be able to get out of your way), and someone  _ exceedingly fucking fast _ , because the pitch will be coming in real quick and the catcher is  _ right there _ waiting to tag you out. If you’re curious, look up Jacoby Ellsbury stealing home for the Red Sox—very cool. The same boy also did it when he was on the Yankees, but I am a Red Sox fan and the Yankees suck.]

**Rain delays:** Baseball can’t happen if it’s raining too hard. Rain makes playing very difficult. Rain delays are pretty common. That being said, I’ve got no idea what players do during rain delays. I made that part up. To be fair, I have no idea what baseball players do  _ anytime _ they’re not actively playing baseball, but I think I made some decent educated guesses.

**Steroids and Cheating:** Performance enhancing drugs are illegal in most sports. The Major Leagues had an  _ incredibly _ massive scandal in the nineties/2000s where players were getting busted left and right for taking steroids. Since then, the Commission has been hyper-vigilant about keeping drugs out of the League, and they come down  _ extremely _ hard on anybody who gets caught. Steroids and PEDs are very important to the plot of this fic. (Note: colloquial term for steroid use is "juicing.")

Other cheating scandals have rocked professional baseball—I’d actually argue that there’s been one per generation. There were  _ huge _ ones about betting and gambling during the entire 20th century; there was the steroid one; nowadays, it’s illegal sign-stealing. Signs aren’t just between catchers and pitchers—teams have signs that they flash around the field from person to person, communicating anything from what plays they’re pulling to whether or not you should steal a base. They’re pretty simple, but they’re also code, to keep the other team from understanding. They change a lot to keep people from cracking the codes. To be clear, it is  _ fully legal _ to decode and “steal” those signs and use that knowledge to your advantage.  _ HOWEVER, _ it is absolutely not legal to steal these signs through electronic means. Recently, both the Houston Astros and my beloved Red Sox have gotten in deep, deep shit for using illegal means to steal signs during playoff games.

**The spirit of baseball:** It’s a very, very long season. Not every loss is a big deal—baseball has big “there’s always tomorrow” vibes, and when that turns into an entire bad season, the sport also has big “there’s always  _ next year _ ” vibes. (This has always proven true, except for 2020, which is so depressing.) Why do you think people were still fans of the Cubs even though they legit didn’t win a World Series until 2016? With the exception of Yankees fans, baseball is not a sport for bandwagon fans. Ride-or-die fans of a team for  _ decades _ even if they suck ass and never win a championship—that’s how baseball works.

**Are there real gay baseball players?** : As of 2020, there has  _ NEVER _ been an openly gay Major League Baseball player. There have been a couple of Minor League players who’ve come out as gay, and I think maybe one Major Leaguer who came out  _ long _ after he’d retired. It’s pretty sad imo. That’s why Steve and Bucky being together is such a big deal in this fic.

That's about it! Once again, leave any questions about baseball in the comments and I'll answer them, or come back here to clarify things. Thanks for reading! Let's get to the actual story now.


	2. Reunion

Steve shifted in place, digging his cleats into the dirt under his shoes. Once he was satisfied, he tucked his arm behind his back and leaned forward, squinting at T’Challa, who was crouching behind home plate. T’Challa, whose eyes could barely be seen through his catcher’s mask, put down a sign for Steve. Fastball. 

Nodding, Steve leaned back and settled into a stance, readjusting his grip on the baseball. Somewhere, outside his very narrow sphere of awareness (himself, his catcher, the batter, the umpire behind T’Challa), he could hear the home crowd yelling—not for him and his team. 

It was the bottom of the ninth. Two outs. He had a guy on second, the result of a couple shitty pitches that he wished he could take back. And Steve was running a full count on the current batter—two strikes, three balls. One pitch away from either a walk or an out, and he knew which one he’d prefer. The Dodgers, his team, were winning by only two runs: tight.

Which was why he was pitching. Steve was a closer—a specialized, dedicated type of pitcher who pitched “saves,” which were high-pressure situations to end games, usually while his team was winning by three runs or less. It was…stressful. 

He took a breath, wound up and threw.

As soon as he let go of it, he knew that the fastball was a bad call. The batter looked like he was going to eat it for breakfast, hanging back and waiting and expecting it. Sure enough, when he swung, he made contact—but it was weak, and the ball skidded back toward him over the grass. 

T’Challa ripped his mask off and made a run toward the ball, but Steve got there first, barehanding it off the grass. Rhodes was waiting at first base, glove out, and Steve threw in the same long motion, not breaking stride. 

The baseball hit Rhodey’s glove with a dusty thump just before the runner’s foot hit the base, and he was called out. The game ended with a chorus of groans from the home team’s crowd, and Steve let his shoulders relax. 

T’Challa retrieved his mask and hooked it on the back of his helmet before coming up to Steve and pulling him into a quick bro-hug. “Sorry about that last call,” he said, starting to lead the march to the dugout. “Thought it was a strikeout for sure.”

Steve shook his head. “Nah, I thought so too. But it worked out. An out’s an out in the scorebook, doesn’t matter if it’s a strikeout or a groundout.”

“Strikeout’s less stressful, though.” T’Challa bounced down the dugout steps and started peeling off the catcher’s gear, tossing his chest pad onto a bench. “The sooner we get a full-time replacement catcher, the happier I’ll be.” T’Challa was a utility player, with enough diverse training to be like a Swiss Army knife of a player. He could play almost any position on the field—but catcher wasn’t usually one of them.

“I know.” Steve sighed and kept walking, past the dugout and into the clubhouse beyond. The rest of his teammates were buzzing around in the locker room, changing out and showering and prepping to get on the plane home. They had a day off in New York when they got back, so that plus the win lent an air of relaxation and celebration to the atmosphere. 

Steve, too, changed into street clothes after a quick shower, and then wandered out into the hallway with his bag. They weren’t leaving for a little bit longer, and people were still milling about, so he walked until he found the little room that served as their manager’s office on the road.

He knocked on the open door and stuck his head in. “You busy?”

“No, come in.” Natasha Romanoff looked up from her desk and smiled when she saw him. “Hey, Rogers. What’s up?”

“I’m sure you can guess.” Steve sat in a chair across from her.

“Let me see. What could my closer possibly want to talk about that’s so important that he comes to talk to me about it every time he pitches?” Nat smirked at him, confirming his suspicions. She knew what he was thinking. 

“Hunter’s been injured for three weeks,” Steve said, leaning forward. Lance Hunter was their regular catcher, and he’d torn something in his ankle. He’d been on the Injured List the whole time, but he was past the ten-day limit. Speculation (kept from the press for now) was that he wouldn’t be able to return this season, maybe  _ ever _ , and that plans were being put into place to put him on the 60-day IL. “T’Challa’s great, but he fucking hates playing catcher, and it shows. We need someone with the experience behind the plate to call the right pitches.”

Nat sighed. “I know, Steve. I know. But you know that’s not my call.” Nat was the Dodgers’ manager, in charge of day-to-day team direction and general coaching (as well as being in charge of all the actual coaches). She wasn’t their general manager, in charge of trades and contracts and such like.  _ That _ was Nick Fury.

“Well, can you please talk to Fury?” Steve leaned back, knowing he sounded a bit like a petulant child. “I just…we need a catcher.”

Nat shook her head. “We’re working on it. The front office knows that Lance is down for the count. We’re on the market.”

Steve bit his lip. “Okay.”

Nat smiled at him, not the usual smirk, but a proper smile. “Just relax, Steve. Enjoy your day off.” She started pulling papers towards herself across the desk. “Get on the bus. Take a nap.”

“No sleep till Brooklyn, baby,” Steve said, getting up and saluting at her with two fingers as he took leave of her office. 

He heard her laugh as he closed the door behind him.

* * *

The flight back to the city was uneventful. So was most of the next day. Days off were boring, especially when compared with the excitement of being a professional baseball player. And since Steve wasn’t one of the guys that had a family or anything, he was left to kick around his apartment aimlessly and hope that his teammates would be up for a beer later.

Which they were. Sam texted him that he and Clint and Tony were going out, and he should come. They did this a lot—team hangs were fun and Nat encouraged them for camaraderie purposes.

He met up with Sam and Clint and Tony at a bar not too far from his apartment, one they frequented often; none of the regulars were ever fazed by a gaggle of Major League Baseball players hanging out. Aside from the occasional picture request, they were never bothered, and the bartenders all loved their generous tips. 

The three of them were already there when he arrived, and Sam waved at him and pointed him to an already-ordered beer waiting on the table.

“We have news,” Clint said as soon as Steve sat down.

“Oh? That’s mysterious.” Steve picked up the bottle but didn’t drink yet.

“Riley says that there’s something in the works,” Sam said. Riley was Sam’s closest friend. He’d come up with Sam through the minor leagues, and probably would’ve been one of those super young rookies if he hadn’t had a catastrophic elbow injury. But now he was a sportswriter, assigned specifically to the Dodgers, and he provided Sam (and thus the team) with a lot of insider info whenever he got it. 

“What kind of something?” Steve furrowed his brow. “That’s  _ too _ mysterious. Are we making a trade for somebody?”

Sam shook his head. “Not a trade. Someone from the minors.”

Steve groaned and pressed his forehead against the lip of his bottle. “The  _ minors _ ?”

“Hey, hey, relax, pretty boy.” Tony patted the table between them. “Don’t be an elitist. Romanoff wouldn’t start just anybody.”

“Maybe.” Steve looked up. “How reliable is Riley’s info?”

Sam’s eyebrows went up. “I am  _ insulted _ that you would even ask me that, Steve Rogers. How dare you.”

“So it’s a rumor,” Steve said, deadpan.

“Yeah, of course it’s a rumor!” Sam laughed. “But that’s more than we knew before, so who knows what’s true?”

“Well, keep your fingers crossed, everybody.” Clint drained his beer and looked around to try and order another one. “Because I personally don’t rate our playoff chances very high if we don’t get a catcher who actually knows how to be a catcher.”

“And  _ likes _ it,” Steve added. T’Challa was seriously the most talented position player he knew—he just wished catching was in his wheelhouse.

“Fingers crossed.” Sam raised his glass and tapped it against Steve’s. “Now chill out. This shit’s above our pay-grade.”

Steve couldn’t help but agree, and the rest of the evening was passed on more enjoyable topics, like who deserved to be in the All-Star game and whether the Yankees would make playoffs again. Also they got into a large argument about whose promotional bobblehead looked the most realistic—the correct answer was none of them, but they really nailed Tony’s facial hair.

On the walk back to his apartment, Steve’s phone rang. He barely glanced at the screen before grinning and swiping to answer it. “Hey, Peg.”

“Why, hello, Steve.” He could hear Peggy’s smile across the miles between them. “How is your baseball-free evening?”

Steve smiled at the ground, suddenly and sharply wishing that she was with him in New York still. “Oh, you know. Uneventful. How’s Boston?”

“Swell as always.” Peggy’s voice dropped in pitch a little bit. “How is everything with the team? I hear you’re in the market for a new catcher.”

Steve filled her in on what he knew—not much—and then gave her updates on everybody else. “Things are fine,” he said. “As always. I miss you, though.”

“I know, darling. I miss you too.” She sighed. 

They’d met in college and become fast friends, even though he was busy with D1 baseball all the time. Then, they’d lived in New York together for a few months after graduating, while Steve was still in the drafting process. They almost— _ almost _ —dated, but then Steve got picked up by the LA Hydras and shipped out to be in their farm system. And she had stayed in New York.

A few years later, after shuffling between a few teams, he came back to New York for good, to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers. By then, Peggy was seriously dating Angie Martinelli, and almost as soon as Steve had settled back into New York, the two of them shipped off to Boston. Peggy was a prosecutor, and apparently the cases she'd gotten in New York had been dry compared to the ones she worked in Boston.

They lived very different lives.

And now, Peggy was pretty much settled forever in Boston: Angie had opened and now owned and operated a diner in the city, which was doing well. They’d gotten engaged last summer—it seemed that New York was behind them for good.

Suddenly, Angie’s voice hopped on the phone. “I miss you too, sugar!” she said, not one to be left out.

Steve laughed. “Miss you, Angie.” 

He heard Peggy wrestle the phone back. “We’ll come visit sometime this summer,” she said. “Maybe over the All-Star break?”

“Sure, that would be great.” Steve reached his building and started up the stairs. “Hey, I should probably turn in. Game tomorrow, and all that. Early practice.”

“Of course, dear. Keep me updated on that catcher situation.”

“Will do.” Steve unlocked his apartment and slipped inside.

“See you soon!” She hung up.

Steve sighed at his phone, looking at it for a long moment before he started on the motions of going to bed, of turning his brain off. He looked out the window, at the city, at all the lights and the cars and the people. 

He was a grown man making millions playing a little boy’s sport on his childhood baseball team full of people he admired and liked.

So why did he feel so…weird?

He shook off the thought with a snort.  _ Melodramatic _ . He went to bed. He’d feel better in the morning, when he was back on a baseball field.

* * *

Funnily enough, when Steve walked onto Ebbets Field the next day, he  _ did _ feel better. It was something about the smell of the fresh-cut grass, the crunch of the infield dirt, the glint of the sun off the thousands of stadium seats. He’d been coming here since he was a skinny little kid, his Ma bringing him whenever (rarely) she had the money to go see the Dodgers. 

His hometown team. And he  _ played _ for them. 

He was in the outfield now, running drills. Daytime practices were usually full of shit like batting practice, fielding drills, the like. T’Challa, for example, probably hating his life and Nat by extension, was catching for Peter Parker as he worked on honing a decent slider. Pitchers like Steve usually warmed up their arms, getting into the swing of things. Right now, though, they were goofing off with a speed contest. Jim Morita—who was a utility player who functioned well as a back-up catcher but was still in recovery from a sprained ankle—was catching for them, and Danny Rand, one of the relief pitchers, had a speed gun out. 

So far, Frank Castle was winning. Big shock. He had a fastball that topped out at 102 mph sometimes, even if he had very little control. Steve was watching the contest, not participating, swinging his arm around idly to keep his shoulder loose. 

Movement and color near the dugout caught his eye. It was Nat, her hair standing out in the breeze like a pennant. But there was someone next to her, too, somebody Steve didn’t recognize immediately. 

He glanced at his fellow pitchers, who were all clustered around the speed gun, squabbling over whether Rand was holding it correctly and if Castle was cheating. Deciding he wasn’t needed, and too curious to stop himself, Steve jogged across the outfield. 

“Nat! Hey!” he called when he got closer, waving at her and the newcomer. 

Nat turned to him and smiled. “Steve! Speak of the devil.”

“You were speaking of me?” Steve started to slow up, almost reaching her now. “Who’s this?”

As if in response, the new guy raised his hand in front of his face to shade it, and he came into focus; tall (but not as tall as Steve), his dark hair a little bit longer than when Steve had last seen it, curling around his ears. A Dodgers hat and a baseball glove were both dangling from his left hand. Steve would recognize that face anywhere.

_ “Bucky Barnes?” _ he said.

A bright grin split Bucky’s face, knocking the breath out of Steve’s lungs. “Steve Rogers!” he said, and Steve found himself yanked by his non-gloved hand into a quick, back-slapping hug. “How’ve you been?”

For a moment, Steve couldn’t respond. He was too overwhelmed by a memory manifested live in front of him, this man he’d once known. James Barnes, in front of him, in the flesh. He squinted against the sun and took in every inch of him, his smile, his crinkled-up eyes.  _ That’s him, all right _ .

Then he realized Bucky was waiting for a response. “I’m, uh, good! How’re you? What’re you doing here?”

“I’m your new catcher.” Bucky put on the Dodgers cap as if to prove it. He tilted his head, and with a sharp jolt, Steve felt a lot of things pass between them. He couldn’t name any of them. “I hear you’re in desperate need.”

Steve huffed a laugh, and was about to reply—

“We actually called him up from Triple A,” Nat said, startling him. He’d forgotten she was there.

“Oh? What are you doing in the minors?” Steve frowned. Out in California, when they’d played together, Bucky got called up to the majors a full season before Steve did. Why was he back down?

“Injury.” Bucky flashed a tight, uncomfortable smile. 

“He’s all healed,” Nat said, squinting behind her mirrored aviators. “It’s been in the works for some time now. I would’ve told you sooner, if I knew you guys…knew each other.”

A noise behind Steve distracted them, and they turned to see Peter Parker apologizing profusely to T’Challa after nailing him in the mask with a pitch. 

Nat turned to Bucky. “You start right now, Barnes. Get some gear, please.”

Bucky shifted his weight, and for a brief, unsteady moment, Steve thought he saw hesitation on his face. It was as if he wanted to stay and keep talking. But he just pressed his lips together and patted Steve’s shoulder before heading back to the dugout to put gear on.

Steve watched him go, then turned to watch as T’Challa recovered from getting hit. “How do you two know each other?” Nat asked as soon as Bucky was out of earshot.

“We came up together.” Steve watched the pitching coach, Maria Hill, come back onto the mound to instruct Peter some more. T’Challa had gotten up and was headed to the dugout to strip off his gear—Maria must have told him that his catching nightmare was over. 

“You guys were in the minors together?” 

“Got drafted to the Hydras in the same year. Played in their farm system for a full season. We—we were close.”

“What happened?” Nat’s voice was neutral, but Steve wasn’t fooled. She was curious.

He shrugged. “I got traded into the Giants system. He got called up to the majors. We kept track of each other for awhile, but you know how it is.”

Nat hummed. “You’ll have to catch up later. But he’s starting tonight, so if we end up needing you, you’ll be throwing to him.”

Steve nodded. “I’m good with that. He’s always been great.”

“Oh, trust me, I know.” Nat smirked. “And we didn’t even have to trade for him. I think this might just work out.”

Steve opened his mouth to reply, but a burst of yelling from the outfield distracted him. Someone must have broken Castle’s speed record, or something—there was a cluster of pitchers around Danny Rand.

“Go back out there and get loose, Rogers.” Nat nudged him and started back inside.

Steve did as he was told, jogging back to the outfield. But he couldn’t focus. Something about Bucky being here so suddenly put him off-balance—the field, the very grass under him felt a little different now. Shifted, ever so slightly.

He looked around as his fellow pitchers continued to fuck around. Nat had gone into the clubhouse, leaving the warning track empty. And there was a new figure crouched behind home plate, as T’Challa (looking exuberant) trotted out to meet the other position players in left field. Bucky was hidden by the catcher’s mask and the helmet and all the other paraphernalia, but Steve could still tell when they made eye contact. He felt it in his stomach.

Bucky waved at him, and Steve waved back. He had the strangest impulse to go over and have Bucky switch places with Morita, just so he could catch up with the guy. He could feel the draw, like a hook in his sternum, to talk to this man he’d known.

But the other pitchers were starting on some actually  _ normal _ drills, and Steve decided to do his job. He shoved his churning thoughts aside and refocused. Bucky was a problem for another time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! As promised, here's a rundown of some stuff that may be confusing in here:
> 
> -Firstly, and this is actually really important—catchers call for the pitches that pitchers then throw. They do this by signaling with their fingers between their legs, which is an effort to hide what pitch they’re calling from the other team. So Bucky (or in this chapter, T’Challa) is often described as signaling between his legs, for a fastball or a curveball or what have you. Sidenote: catchers actually, for the most part, control the entire game this way. They size up the batters and decide how to beat their strengths and tell the pitchers how to do so; they direct other infielders on how to position themselves on defense; they call every play. 
> 
> -Full Count - The name of the fic lmao. I did define a full count in this fic’s summary, but it’s important, so I’ll say it again—in baseball, the “count” refers to how many strikes and balls a batter has “on him” during an at bat. Because the limit of strikes is three and the limit for balls is four, the highest these numbers can be without some kind of outcome is 3-2—three balls, two strikes. This is called a full count, because the count is as full as it can be before something happens, an out or a walk or whatever else. Full counts are stressful and tense, and are referenced a lot.


	3. Catching Up

The game later that day took an interesting shape. The Dodgers got ahead early on a solo shot home run from Clint, and then swiftly lost the lead after a messy inning by Danny Rand, today’s starter. Steve watched from the bullpen as the innings thereafter dragged by, the score remaining 2-1 in the visiting Marlins’ favor.

He also watched his fellow pitchers (three of them, including Danny, who Nat pulled in the fifth inning) throw to Bucky, who was just a splash of color from the bullpen’s position out behind right field. But sometimes, Steve could’ve sworn that he felt Bucky’s eyes on him.

The score remained the same going into the bottom of the eighth inning, and Nat called on the bullpen phone and told Steve to warm up, just in case. It would be his ball if his teammates managed to close the gap or take a lead, so he should be ready. Gabe Jones was also up and throwing—it would be his turn if the score stayed the same.

Steve, in between throwing, watched the action. Pietro kicked things off with a double that got the fans noisy. They became even louder when Scott Lang sidestepped a wild pitch, and Pietro used the time spent scrambling for the ball to scoot to third base. But then Scott struck out swinging, and everybody groaned, momentarily deflated.

Then Bucky came up to bat. Steve watched him more than he threw, annoying the catcher crouched across from him. But he wanted to pay attention, because Bucky was hitting right-handed, even though he was a born lefty. Steve remembered that much from LA. This was a smart match-up—left-handed pitchers like the one currently throwing for the Marlins tended to have a high rate of success against fellow lefties, so it was good to hit righty if you could, to throw things off.  _ But is he a switch hitter now? _

Whatever the case, the choice worked. A pitch came right down the pipe, and Bucky took a big swing and smoked the ball deep into center. Pietro went jogging home and Bucky trotted into second with a stand-up double.

Steve whooped and cheered along with the fans and his teammates, grinning from ear to ear. Now the game was tied, and he was definitely going to pitch. Gabe clapped him on the shoulder as he went to sit down.

Clint was up next, the man with the second-best batting average on the team (behind only Thor) due to his uncanny ability to read pitches. He had eyes like a hawk, which also made him an excellent outfielder. Steve was  _ just _ thinking how now would be a great time for a two run home run when Clint let loose an absolute cannon blast into left field and sent both himself and Bucky for a run around the bases.

Steve just shook his head, still smiling, and cheered again. 4-2, just like that.

The inning ended soon after, and a quick call on the bullpen phone confirmed that Steve was the one going in. So he jogged out across the grass, his glove tucked against his chest. 

It was only when he reached the mound, his cleats crunching on the dirt, that he realized with a catch in his chest that he’d be throwing to Bucky. He’d forgotten, somehow, like an idiot. 

Sure enough, Bucky popped out of the dugout, all in his catcher’s gear. He flashed a grin at Steve as he hooked a ball at him, and Steve had to react quickly to catch it. He rolled his shoulder as Bucky tugged his mask on and settled behind the plate.

Steve threw a few exploratory tosses to finish warming up, feeling out the act of pitching at Bucky again. It was a little…weird. The amount of eye contact alone was overwhelming. Steve hadn’t expected to even be near Bucky again after their time together in the minors, and this was so sudden.

He didn’t have time to think about it. The first batter stepped up, all of his teammates stilled in their positions behind him, and Bucky flicked his fingers between his thighs for a curveball.

Steve hesitated.

He didn’t  _ mean _ to, but he couldn’t help it. Quickly, Bucky signaled again, and even from the mound Steve could see that he was frowning behind the mask. Steve nodded this time, mentally shaking himself.  _ Dumbass. _ It was stupid to get freaked out just because they hadn't played together in a while _. _

He threw the curveball. It slapped against Bucky’s mitt as the hitter’s bat whistled by it without making contact, and the ump grunted  _ strike _ . Steve grinned at Bucky, quick and apologetic. He jerked his chin at his catcher, the most obvious  _ I trust you _ gesture he could think of. Bucky nodded back, and they went to work.

Steve struck out the first two batters in quick succession, then racked the third one up to a full count. The weight of the game (such a slim lead, the normal pressure he put on himself) began to sit a little heavier on him. He shifted in place, hunched his shoulders.

Bucky stood and jogged out to him, yanking his mask off and hooking it on the back of his helmet as he went. Steve took a minute step back as Bucky came to a stop, surprised to have him so suddenly in his space. 

“What’s the matter?” Bucky asked into his glove.

“Nothing,” Steve said. He shook his head. “I'm always like this. Um...You’re doing really well.”

“Thanks.” Bucky’s eyes crinkled over the top of the mitt concealing the rest of his face. “But, uh, relax. Throw a changeup, low. He’ll swing.” Bucky turned back to the plate, already pulling his mask down.

Steve hummed as he left, and watched Bucky as he squatted and lifted his glove. He forced himself to take a deep breath, then wound up. He threw the changeup. The batter swung and missed with a frustrated grunt. 

He whooped and punched out his glove, grinning at Bucky, who pumped his fist and shoved his mask up. They met at the mound, and Steve tugged Bucky into a quick bro-hug that seemed to startle him. But he had a big dumb grin and his eyes were shining, so Steve impulsively hooked an arm around his back and led him to the dugout.

“Well done,” Nat said, staying deadpan as she patted Bucky’s back and watched the team go by in a wave of contended players. She locked eyes with Steve, and smiled a little. He knew why—Bucky was a damn good catcher, and Nat knew as well as he did that this was the last piece of the puzzle to build their team into playoff contenders. Steve, despite his apprehension about Bucky’s sudden return to his life, couldn’t deny a warm excitement at that prospect. Besides, it felt good to pitch to Bucky.

Laughing and carousing, everybody started changing out so they could go home. Only Nat was working the press room tonight, so they were all set to head out. Steve did assume that at some point, some of the journalists would want to get their hands on the brand new catcher, but it might wait a little bit.

Bucky’s arm was still loosely looped around Steve’s shoulders, but he was half turned away, chatting with Thor. Content that they could catch up later (tomorrow, maybe), Steve slipped out from his grip and started to get ready to go home. He took his hat off, which mussed up his sweaty hair, and yanked his cleats off. When he straightened up, he realized Bucky was looking at him.

His eyes were the same, Steve decided—clear, piercing, blue. The omnipresent circles under them were a little darker than before, although they themselves were bright. He froze, pinned in place by that gaze. “Yeah?”

“Nothing, I just—“ Bucky cut himself off, smiling and sitting down to untie his own shoes. “It’s nice to play on the same team as you again.”

A smile spread across Steve’s face. “Yeah, I think so too.” He nudged Bucky’s shoulder with his own. “Good to have you around again.” He tugged his street shoes on and stripped his shirt off, standing to replace it with a soft hoodie in Dodgers blue. “We’ll chat soon, okay? Catch up?”

Bucky tilted his head up at him, eyes shining. “Yeah, for sure.”

“See you tomorrow,” Steve said, saluting lazily at him before scooping up his stuff and loping out of the locker room. He caught Nat’s eye in the hallway outside the clubhouse, and she nodded at him. He gave her a thumbs up, and she rolled her eyes at him.

After all the excitement, Steve slept soundly and dreamed of the past, of Bucky’s laugh back when they knew each other in LA.

* * *

When he got to the park the next day, Steve was greeted by the team’s press agent, Karen Page. “I want you mic’d up and in the press room in ten minutes,” she said, barely looking up from a clipboard. “I have  _ Times _ writers and ESPN reporters and god knows who else chomping at the bit to ask you about pitching to a new catcher.”

Steve hadn’t even put his bag down. He looked at her, head tilted. “You couldn’t give them another pitcher?”

“You’re a closer and you don’t need as much warm-up,” Karen said. “Nat said I could use you.” She finally looked at him and frowned. “Why aren’t you moving?”

“I’m going, I’m going.” Steve followed her down the hall. She led him into the press conference room, which was partially dismantled at this time of day. There were a few (more informal) seats set up, and a cluster of reporters messing with their equipment and chatting. Some of them saw Steve and casually raised a hand in greeting.

Karen pulled him aside next to one of the seats and handed him a mic pack, helping him maneuver it into place. He looked around some more, absently rolling his throwing shoulder as he frowned and adjusted the hood of his Dodgers sweatshirt. “Is it just me?” he asked, gesturing at the chairs.

Karen didn’t answer at first, patting his shoulder to indicate she was done getting him ready. “You’re good to go.” Then, as an afterthought: “Oh, and no, you’re not alone. They want the new catcher too.”

Steve turned in place and saw Bucky standing in the doorway. He smiled when he saw Steve, and came to stand next to them. Steve didn’t even have time to think about it before Karen was speaking again.

“Okay, normal talking points. You both know the drill. ‘I’m happy to be here, glad I can help out the team, hoping to give it my best shot’, all that stuff.” She nodded at Bucky. “It’s your first press appearance since you’ve gotten here, but Nat tells me you’re fine.”

“Yeah, I’m all right.” Bucky shrugged fluidly, looking around. “It’s all the same, right?”

“More or less. Knock ‘em dead, boys.” Karen turned to the assorted press behind them and gave a thumbs up. 

They were quickly positioned on the chairs and faced with a  _ Times _ sports writer, a guy Steve had met a couple times before. “Hey, guys, how we doing today?”

“Good,” Steve and Bucky said in unison, almost monotone.

“Great!” The reporter flashed a quick grin at them. “So, Steve, is there much of a difference, pitching to different people?” he asked.

Steve tipped his hand from side to side before he could stop himself, but at least this was a print reporter. “It depends,” he said. “Everybody calls a different game, but part of the job is being able to do what you gotta do no matter who’s behind the plate.”

“Of course.” The reporter bobbed his head. He turned to Bucky instead. “How are you feeling with this Dodgers team?”

Bucky sat up a little straighter. “I’m really excited,” he said, and he sounded it. “These guys are a hungry, talented group, and I’m lucky to be a part of it. I’m excited to get a chance to contribute and get back into the swing of the majors.”

“That’s right, how’s the shoulder?” the reporter asked.

This meant nothing to Steve (the injury Nat had mentioned?), but he nodded along as Bucky reached up and massaged his left shoulder and said, “Much better. I’m ready to get back into it.”

“And how does it feel to be playing with your old teammate?” the reporter asked, gesturing at Steve. 

Bucky smiled. “It’s always great to reconnect with people. I really liked playing with Steve out west, and I’m excited about the rest of the season.”

Steve smiled back at him, not even caring that he was being mostly ignored in this interview. It was always nice to hear that Bucky had missed playing with him too. 

It went on like that for a while, stilted conversations with reporters who clearly meant well but were asking for stories that weren’t really there. They were very interested in the past Steve and Bucky shared, playing together, but there wasn’t much to tell. (Was there?)

It did make Steve think back a little, to those days playing in the minors. Being so desperate and hungry and young that you could taste the edge between success and failure. To throwing to Bucky as hard as he could and hoping to impress some scout in the stands. To nights in shitty bars, trying to save money and talking about being called up to the show and proving themselves to the fans and everybody else. 

It was like a hit of nostalgia. He hadn’t thought about it in a long time. It also made him realize how  _ fun _ playing with Bucky had been. 

They’d have to catch up soon without a reporter between them.

* * *

He didn’t get the chance until a few days later, the very last game of their home-stand in New York. The game couldn’t even get started thanks to a torrential downpour, so the team was hunkered down in the clubhouse for the rain delay. 

“If it rains any harder, we’ll have build an ark,” Rhodey joked. He flipped his cards over to show a bust and sighed heavily, throwing back a cup of Gatorade like a shot. 

“If I had a dollar for every time I heard that joke, I’d be rich,” Tony said. He looked at his own cards, face unreadable.

“You  _ are _ rich,” Pietro said, incredulous beneath his accent. “We all are.”

“That’s the joke, kid.” Tony shook his head and dealt himself another card.

Most of the team was ranged around the room, playing other poker games or talking or listening to music. Some were slumped on the couches, watching coverage of other games across the country in places where the sun was shining.

He was currently playing blackjack with some of the position players, and Tony was dealing. Steve suspected he was skimming or counting cards or something, but he didn’t say anything even as he won another round.

Instead, his eyes caught on a familiar figure on the couches, looking a little bored. Steve almost instinctively tossed his cards down. “I’m out,” he said. “I’m not gonna keep playing if Stark is gonna keep cheating.”

This was met with general assent from his fellow players and an indignant exclamation from Tony. Chuckling, Steve stood and left them to it.

He crossed the room and grinned at Bucky as he walked up to him, hands in his pockets. “How ya holdin’ up?”

Bucky looked at him, surprise quickly replaced by a smile. “I’m good,” he said, shifting his weight on the couch. Steve wondered if that was an unconscious move. It made him seem tense.

Steve looked at the TV and saw that the game was Astros v. Red Sox. He idly hoped the Sox lost—they were behind Boston in the standings. 

“Wanna sit?” Bucky asked, nodding at the seat next to him.

Steve nodded and sank into it, sighing as he sat. For a moment, they both just looked at each other, listening to the rain beat down outside and the poker table squabble about a new dealer. “Is this awkward?” Bucky asked finally.

That cracked it, and then they were both laughing. It felt good, and as Steve chuckled, he found himself feeling more warmth than he expected. (A similar feeling to the other day—slowly spreading nostalgia.) “Doesn’t have to be,” he said when they’d calmed again. “I, uh, kinda missed you, man.”

Bucky huffed a laugh and looked down and away. “Yeah, you too.” He cleared his throat. “It’s been good here, with the Dodgers?”

“Oh, yeah.” Steve nodded emphatically. “It’s a great atmosphere.” He paused. “How’s it been with you lately?”

“Not much different,” Bucky said, a little evasively. “Uh. Becca got a new job.”

Steve grinned. “Did she?” He loved hearing about Bucky’s little sister—never met the kid, but she was all Bucky really talked about. He’d heard a lot about her back in the day.

They chatted for awhile, in between making comments about the Astros offense versus that of the Red Sox. Bucky filled Steve in on Becca—she was a grad student now and had an internship working with one of her professors, which Bucky said meant that she was being dragged all across the country for conference after conference. Then they chatted about how he was liking the Dodgers so far, and how Steve had liked it when he first came over from the Giants.

The year they’d played together… Steve could clearly remember arriving in the minors, greener than the most untested rookie, and meeting Bucky. They’d found out quickly that they’d grown up only a few streets away from each other and only arbitrary district lines kept them from meeting at school. It had been so weird, that they’d been so close for so many years without meeting, sharing experiences without ever crossing paths. There’d been something there, the beginning of something that could’ve been really good, a friendship that could’ve lasted them through trades and free agencies and different teams.

That feeling was still there, these few years later. Steve wondered at that, because he’d thought at the time, when he left to go to the Giants and they’d lost touch, that their closeness had been due to that youthfulness of the minor leagues.  _ Guess not _ . 

Nat popped into the room, and everybody looked up hopefully, the room’s dull murmur halting.

“On your feet, boys, it’s game-time once again,” she said brightly, to ragged cheers. There was a flurry of movement as everyone stood and started scooping up gear.

Steve looked out the window in surprise. He hadn’t realized that the rain had let up. He turned back to Bucky, who was smiling softly. “Talk to you later?” he asked, and he sounded so hopeful that Steve found himself smiling back before he realized it.

“Yeah, totally,” he said, nudging Bucky’s shoulder with his. “Game first, though.”

“Obviously.” Bucky stood and started toward the dugout, grinning over his shoulder. “Gotta win first.”

Easier said than done. 

The field was still pretty damp after being bombarded by water for over two hours, and playing any ball that hit grass was a nightmare. Lingering showers swept by every inning or so, soaking everybody to the bone. Both teams went through pitchers like shit through a goose, trying to find someone who could keep a grip on the soaking wet baseball. Watching it from the bullpen, Steve could tell that everybody was totally miserable.

Despite the nasty conditions, play continued and the Dodgers managed to hold tightly to a tied score at 1-1. Even without the lead, Nat called Steve in to pitch after just one batter in the top of the ninth, after Luis (usually unshakably upbeat but much more subdued today) gave up a double that the runner stretched to third base when Clint fumbled the wet ball in left field. 

Steve jogged out across the slippery grass, shoulders up near his ears to stave of the cold. He had kind of hoped to avoid pitching today, if he was honest. That feeling of despondence was prevalent on the field—it could not have been clearer that everybody wanted the game to end as soon as possible, regardless of who won.

Bucky didn’t even smile at Steve when they settled in, but he did nod and made his signals with the same care as usual. Not wanting to waste time, Steve barely even nodded before he wound up and threw.

Right away, he realized what was happening—the batter’s bat was low. He was bunting. 

He made quick contact and the ball bounced down the first base line, a little harder than a truly effective bunt should’ve been. Steve followed it, slipping a little on the wet infield grass, but Bucky was faster, throwing off his mask as he went. But Rhodey got there from first, before both of them, and barehanded it off the grass and threw it straight back to Bucky, using the same motion to point the catcher back toward home plate, where the runner was sprinting home from third base.

Bucky caught the ball off a bounce that streaked it in mud from the wet dirt, turning smoothly to apply the tag to the runner coming in hot.

The runner was already sliding, though, kicking up a spray of dirt and water. As Steve watched, Bucky barely had time to lunge for the other player’s legs before they barreled into each other.

A lot happened all at once: their limbs tangled together, all askew; the umpire grunted “SAFE” from behind the plate; and Bucky swore rather loudly.

The other player disentangled himself and said something that sounded like “Shit, I’m sorry,” helped Bucky to his feet, then jogged back to his dugout. As Steve watched, still stuck uselessly in place right in front of the mound, Bucky grimaced and walked slowly around home plate, locating his mask and helmet (which had been knocked off in the struggle). 

The ump picked up the gross ball and threw it to a ball boy. All the Dodgers re-settled into their positions after the exciting play, a little dejected by the scored run but too cold to have a big reaction. Steve was still laser-focused on Bucky, who was rolling his left shoulder experimentally, his mask still hanging from one hand. He wasn’t even thinking about the run he’d allowed, the slightly bitter taste of it. He noticed Nat in the dugout, also watching Bucky rather closely. 

When the next batter came to the plate, and Bucky lobbed a fresh baseball to Steve and crouched down, Steve raised his eyebrows at him, trying to ask if he was okay. Bucky just shook his head.

Maybe he hadn’t actually hurt his shoulder. Maybe he was just reacting to the botched tag play. Maybe, even if his shoulder  _ did _ get wrenched, it was only a big deal because it was so goddamn cold, and once the game ended and they warmed up, he’d be fine.

Steve put it out of his head and went back to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some explanations for this chapter:
> 
> -Bullpen: This is where relief pitchers hang out during games. The bullpen is usually wayyy out behind the outfield somewhere. I don’t really know why it’s called the bullpen, but it’s where relievers hang out and where they warm-up, and sometimes they’re called bullpen pitchers because of it. Also, managers communicate with the bullpen via phone. 
> 
> -Wild pitches: Sometimes, the catcher can’t catch the pitch. When this happens and it’s the pitcher’s fault because the pitch was so off the mark, it’s called a “wild pitch.” When it happens and it’s the catcher’s fault cuz they goofed, it’s called a “passed ball.” The result is the same: the ball sails or bounces past the catcher, and while it’s out of the catcher’s control, any runners on base have an open opportunity to take an extra base. They’re quite common, and very annoying for catchers.
> 
> -Bunting: This is a very specific baseball term. It refers to when a player decides not to actually swing the bat, but instead chokes up on it with one hand to hold it kinda more like a club and uses it to just gently tap the baseball. If done correctly, the ball dribbles up the infield in a place where nobody can easily get to it and without enough momentum for it to reach a player, and both those physics and the element of surprise allow runners to advance unhindered. If done poorly (which happens quite a bit) it allows for an easy out.
> 
> See y'all next week!


	4. Toronto

They lost. Obviously. 

Steve changed gratefully into dry street clothes and schlepped to the bus with his teammates. He watched Ebbets fade into the distance through the bus window and tried to convince himself that he actually felt warm again. It was like the cold was sunk bone-deep.

They pulled up to the plane, and he shuffled on with everyone else. He ran into Sam, and the two of them collapsed into seats near a window. “Toronto, huh?” Sam said, pulling bulky headphones out of his bag.

“Mm. Not a huge fan of covered ballparks,” Steve said. 

“Agreed. Although at least we know for sure we won’t get soaked there.”

Before Steve could reply, Sam put the headphones on and tilted his head back, clearly intending to sleep for the plane ride. 

Steve just sat, too tense and residually cold to sleep, and too restless to do much else. He’d lost track of Bucky in the rush after the game ended, but now he spotted him, curled up in a seat by himself. His eyes were closed, but from where he was sitting, Steve could see that his right hand was clamped over his left shoulder. A stab of worry lanced through Steve’s gut.

The plane touched down in Toronto at a ridiculous hour that would’ve been much more bearable if the rain delay hadn’t put them so behind schedule. Everybody stumbled like zombies when they got to the hotel. They had a game in the evening the next day (probably today, but Steve wasn’t sure what time it was), so Nat told them all to go to sleep.

It wasn’t until Steve got his room key that he remembered that they had to share for tonight. Part of the players’ Collective Bargaining Agreement (their union contract) was that players did not have to share hotel rooms—or fly coach—but something had gone screwy with the accommodations tonight. It was  _ just _ for tonight, and that sort of thing happened occasionally. Steve didn’t personally mind very much, but he was so tired and he just fervently hoped that he wasn’t with someone who was currently somehow bouncing off the walls (Luis and both Peters, to name a few).

But instead he turned and ran into Bucky, who wordlessly held his key up to display that they were assigned the same room. Steve smiled involuntarily, and even though Bucky’s hood was up and he looked exhausted, he smiled back and jerked his chin at the elevator.

Bucky unlocked the door when they got to it and shoved it open with his right shoulder, walking straight in and going about settling in with quick, careful motions. Steve followed him a little more slowly, watching him move. He was still very clearly favoring his left shoulder.

“I’m gonna go to sleep pretty quick,” Bucky said, not turning around.

“Yeah, me too.” Steve ducked into the bathroom to give him a bit of space, just for a few moments. When he came back out, Bucky had changed and was lying down, all the lights on his side of the room already off.

Steve turned off his own light and laid down and listened to Bucky’s falling asleep noises and decided that maybe he should ask Bucky about his shoulder tomorrow.

* * *

Steve sat in the bullpen the next day and quietly watched as the Dodgers lost another game. He couldn’t do anything about it, but his blood still boiled as inning after inning went by and his teammates failed to get past second base. He shook his head after the last pitch and filed into the clubhouse with the other unused pitchers. Maybe tomorrow would be better.

By the time they got back to the hotel, the disappointment of the loss had worn off. The guys were joking and shoving as they crowded into the elevators, and a few groups were making loud plans to go out and get dinner or go to a bar. 

Steve, for his part, made his way over to the front desk to get the key for his new room, because the bunking snafu was fixed. The receptionist smiled at him as he handed over the key, but Steve was too focused on turning to find Bucky, who was standing off by himself near the elevators. He looked a little lost, and his right hand was balled into a loose fist. 

Steve oscillated in place for a moment, unsure, then went over and said quietly, “I gotta come get my stuff out of the room. That okay?”

Bucky looked up at him and nodded, looking tired. “Sure thing.” And up they went. Bucky let Steve open the door for him, and Steve tried not to make it obvious that he was watching Bucky pretty closely as he flopped onto his bed. For a moment, Steve just stood there, once again unsure.

He made up his mind and instead of grabbing his stuff and leaving, he crossed to the mini bar and pulled out the first thing he saw, which was a bottle of whiskey, and two glasses. The clinking made Bucky look up, so Steve held the bottle up and raised his eyebrows. “Wanna share?”

Ten minutes later they were on the floor and drinking. Steve was in no hurry to get to his own room, and Bucky didn’t seem to mind.

Bucky had been quiet so far, and Steve was just trying to think about how to draw him out of his shell—he was unsure what had Bucky rattled the past couple days but he also wasn’t going to straight-out ask—but before he could say anything, his phone rang. Both he and Bucky looked at it as it displayed his contact picture of Peggy.

“Gotta get this,” Steve said, and smiled as he raised the phone to his ear. He heard the mattress shift as Bucky slumped back against it.

“Hello, dear,” Peggy said.

“Well, hi,” Steve said, not bothering to lean away from Bucky. He knew it didn’t really matter, particularly because Peggy talked softly enough that Bucky probably couldn’t hear her. 

“Just calling to check on you. Angie watched your game in Toronto this evening and insisted that you looked, quote, ‘bummed out’, unquote, whenever the cameras were on you. _ ” _

Steve laughed. “No, everything’s all right.”

“How about that new catcher you guys have?” Peggy asked, her voice taking on a new tone. 

Unable to stop himself, Steve turned and looked at Bucky, who met his gaze with a raised eyebrow. “I’ll let you know,” Steve said after a too-long hesitation, unwilling to say more with Bucky actually in the room.

“Mhm.” Peggy sounded like she was smiling. “Well, I’d better get back anyway. I just wanted to check in very quickly. I shall call when you guys leave Toronto, Angie and I want to visit for the All-Star break.”

“Sounds good,” Steve said. “Talk to you later, okay?”

“Bye, dear.”

He hung up and took a quick swig of whiskey, watching Bucky out of the corner of his eye. Bucky was looking at him like he was trying to bore a hole in the side of his head. “Was that your girlfriend?” he finally asked.

Steve blinked and turned to look at him. “What about that conversation made you think she’s my girlfriend?” he asked, knitting his brows.

Bucky flushed and took a drink. “I dunno,” he muttered. “She’s gorgeous?”

Steve shook his head and chuckled. “We’re old friends,” he said. “There…was a time when I think we kinda considered getting together, but it started to look like I’d really make it in baseball and then she met a pretty girl named Angie and now…” He shrugged. “They’re happy, and they’re good friends of mine.”

“That’s nice,” Bucky said quietly.

“Peggy likes to keep tabs on me. She worries, I guess.”

Bucky snorted, swirling the ice around in his glass, but didn’t say anything. They sat in companionable silence for a few moments.

“I don’t remember Peggy, from when we were out in the minors,” Bucky said before knocking his drink back. “You didn’t mention her.”

Steve shrugged, feeling a little self-conscious. “I wasn’t sure how close to get with everybody,” he said. “And I wasn’t sure how Peg would feel about me talking about her, and we’d just separated after like months of being really close, and…” He paused. “I don’t know. She was the only person I really had, outside the world of baseball, who cared about me. It felt weird to share that.”

Bucky bobbed his head a little. “I get it. Like me and Becca. The only person outside baseball who gives a shit.”

Steve bumped shoulders with him. “But you talk about Becca all the time,” he teased.

“Well, I’m proud of her!” Bucky said defensively, raising his arms and almost spilling his drink. “Sue me for talking her up since I practically raised her.”

The conversation flowed much more easily after that. Steve leaned comfortably against the bed and listened to Bucky talk about other, slightly more serious things—how he’d actually come to raise Becca after his mom had died, the shit the two of them had to do to scrape by.

They compared notes on how it felt to get drafted out of college, and Steve told Bucky how after his parents died it was just him, lonely and scraping through college baseball and the minors with only Peggy (who at that point was just a voice on his phone) for company. It was interesting to Steve how similar their lives had been—shared life experience.

Then the topic turned to old teams. “The Giants were all right,” Steve said, pitching his voice up. “I didn’t feel like I could trust them very much, to be honest. They just weren’t terribly consistent. And so  _ volatile _ . One insult from another team and suddenly the dugouts were clear.”

Bucky laughed. “Oh, come on, there’s nothin’ more fun than a lame baseball fight.”

“It’s  _ not _ from when some six and a half foot, three hundred pound guy with a bat comes charging at you because you accidentally skimmed his ribs with a pitch,” Steve said. “I might just quit if that happens again.”

“Why didn’t your catcher stop him?” Bucky asked, frowning. It wasn’t strictly part of the job description, but everybody knew that, sort of like a hockey enforcer, catchers were more or less supposed to do whatever it took to protect the pitcher. (Pitchers tended to be rather fragile.)

“Maybe it happened too fast,” Steve said indifferently. He’d long gotten over it, couldn’t even remember the player’s name.

“Hm.” Bucky looked thoughtful. “Well, that won’t happen when I’m catching for you,” he said firmly.

Steve smiled at him, slow and easy. “Thanks,” he said softly, trying to convey the strange warm feeling in his chest.

“Don’t mention it.” Bucky knocked his glass gently into Steve’s, and they sat in silence for another moment.

Then Steve tilted his head back and asked, “What about the Hydras? Was their major league system much like the farm system?”

Like a nervous tic, Bucky’s right hand shot up to massage his left shoulder. Steve frowned at it as Bucky sighed slowly. “It was a bit of a mess,” he said, his voice a little uneven.

Steve sat up straighter, feeling more alert. “What happened?”

“C’mon. You’ve heard the rumors.” Bucky’s tone was airy, waving the question away.

There  _ were _ rumors floating around the League about the Hydras and their manager Alexander Pierce, but they were just rumors. Steve had heard them a lot when he’d been in the Hydras minor leagues—stories that it "wasn't just talent" that produced all their home runs. 

But that didn’t clear things up, because despite it, he’d never heard anything specific. “What happened?” he asked again.

Bucky sighed again, this time through his nose. He kept rubbing his shoulder. “I dunno, it just kind of sucked. I didn’t have any friends, you were gone, and they’re a  _ really _ intense group of guys.” He took a quick sip of his drink. “I didn’t like it there much. They were rowdier than I was used to, and then one day there was a collision and my shoulder got totally fucked up.” He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “I couldn’t throw, couldn’t swing. I was useless.”

“And?” Steve prompted when he didn’t say anything more.

Bucky opened his eyes but didn’t look at him. “Pierce DFA’d me,” he said matter-of-factly. “I was no good anymore so he just cut me loose. I was a rookie, I wasn’t worth much from the start, so they cut their losses.”

Steve hummed, and looked at how much Bucky’s eyes were darting around the room, and wondered very sincerely if that was the whole truth. But he didn’t push it. “Then what?” he asked quietly.

“I didn’t really know what being DFA’d meant back then, that someone else would pick me up. I had no sense of whether I was a valuable player or not, I just thought my career was over.” Bucky shrugged. “But Fury picked me up pretty quick. Nat told me they’d had their eye on me for awhile. They stuck me in the minors till I healed up, which took fucking  _ ages _ , and then they brought me up. So now here we are.”

Steve let the silence sit for a moment, digesting. There was clearly more to the story, more than just an intense clubhouse and an impromptu injury, but he wasn’t going to pry. “How does your shoulder feel now?” he asked instead. “It looked like it got wrenched pretty bad at the end of that game back home.”

Bucky made a face. “Yeah, it’s been bugging me. Aching a bit, you know.” He rolled it, as if for demonstration.

“You should go see Claire about that,” Steve said, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah, yeah.” Bucky snorted. “I’ll go see her if it gets bad.”

“Hey.” Steve pinned him in place with his gaze, trying to look deadly serious. “You should see her tomorrow, okay? Nobody wants you getting hurt.”

Bucky bit the inside of his cheek. “Yeah, okay. Tomorrow.”

“Good.” Steve grinned. 

After that, the conversation returned to happier things as the whiskey and the hours left till morning both dwindled. Then, very late, Steve finally gathered up his stuff and left Bucky by himself in the empty room, looking a little lost.

Steve’s own room felt a little empty, he had to admit. But he fell asleep quickly, even as he slept fitfully and dreamed that Bucky had lost his left arm.

* * *

The next morning, Steve didn’t see Bucky all through pregame warm-ups. He was in the outfield with all of the other pitchers, running drills. But as batting practice started getting set up and the pitchers were dispersing, Sam jogged out to meet him as he was walking toward the dugout.

“Hey, man,” Steve said when Sam came level with him.

“Hey.” Sam turned promptly around to walk with Steve back in the direction he’d come from. “You didn’t come out with us last night.”

“Nah, Barnes and I were passing a bottle of whiskey back and forth in his room,” Steve said. “Got distracted. Why, did I miss something?”

Sam shook his head. “Not really. Riley was just asking about you.”

Steve frowned. “Oh, I missed seeing Riley? Tell him I’m sorry.”

“He’s fine,” Sam said dismissively, waving it away. “I was just wondering if we should be worried.”

“No worries here.” Steve pushed his hat up to run his hand through his hair, making it stick up from the sweat that was curling it into spikes. “Did you guys have fun?”

“Oh, yeah. You know how it is, a bunch of beers and in bed by ten.” Sam rolled his eyes. “That Romanoff’s got us on a tight-ass schedule.”

“All-Star Break’s around the corner,” Steve said amiably.

“True that.” Sam started down the dugout steps. “Oh, by the way, Barnes was lookin’ for you. He says he’s listening to you? Something like that.”

“Oh, is he seeing Claire?” Steve asked.

“I dunno.” Sam shrugged and then vanished down the tunnel.

“Very helpful,” Steve muttered, following him and turning down the twisting hallways until he found Claire Temple’s office. 

Bucky was already there, sitting on the exam table. Claire had her gloves on and was getting ready to test his shoulder, and Bucky was cracking his neck like he was preparing for a fight. Besides that, though, he looked relaxed—Steve could relate. He and Claire had been through this song and dance a lot, and her no-nonsense vibe was strangely comforting.

“Stop me when it hurts,” she told Bucky. “I’ll know if you’re lying.”

“Okay.” Bucky nodded.

Claire gently rotated his shoulder, pulling his arm across his chest and stopping when Bucky made a soft noise of discomfort. She did the same pulling it the other way and released him when it happened again.

Lips pursed, she peeled her gloves off, fixing him with a steely gaze. “Well, it’s not dislocated, obviously, just wrenched. You still need to rest it—no rehab necessary, but I’m putting you on the day-to-day Injured List to force you to take some stress off the joint.”

“The IL?” Bucky demanded, his eyes wide, sounding a little panicked. 

“Yes,” Claire said calmly, rounding her desk to jot some notes down. “Do you want to be out for the All-Star Break and a couple games or do you want to risk serious damage and potentially sitting out another half a season?”

Bucky ducked his head. “Okay, okay. You’re right.”

“Yes, I am,” Claire said. She pointed at him. “Don’t go anywhere, I’m going to talk to Natasha.”

She walked right at Steve, nodded at him, and vanished down the hallway. 

Bucky looked up, saw Steve loitering there, and sighed. “So she’s putting me on the IL,” he said.

“I heard.” Steve crossed his arms and ambled into the room, trying to look sympathetic. 

“I just want to play,” Bucky said softly. He was holding his left wrist, looking down at his arm. 

Steve felt a sudden stab of concern, remembering the way Bucky’s voice had creaked the night before when he talked about being cut loose from the Hydras over injury. Was he scared that could happen again? Taught to be useful, to earn his place. It made Steve’s stomach turn. “It’ll be okay, Buck,” he said, and Bucky’s eyes darted at him with an unreadable expression. “You’ll be back before you know it. And it’s the day-to-day right? That’s not bad.”

“Yeah, I know.” Bucky looked down again.

“Well, I wish you’d told me sooner,” said a disembodied voice from the hallway, and Nat walked into the room with her ever-present sunglasses perched on her head and an arched brow Claire was standing behind her, finishing up whatever paperwork she needed to do. “You played a whole game and you didn’t say anything?” Nat continued, putting her hands on her hips. “I  _ asked _ if you were okay.”

Ignoring (rather magnanimously, Steve thought) that Nat’s conversation in question had been nonverbal and across at least thirty feet of warning track dirt, Bucky said, “What can I say? I’m a silent sufferer.”

Nat pinched the bridge of her nose in her own silent-suffering way. “T’Challa’s gonna be pissed,” she muttered. 

“Morita’s not recovered?” Steve asked.

Claire shook her head. “He needs another week or so. He’ll be fine on the other side of the All-Star Break, though.”

Nat sighed, then shook herself and pointed at Bucky. “If you keep quiet about an injury again, I’ll have Claire put you on the 60-day IL and you’ll count yourself lucky.”

With that, she swept from the room, already calling for T’Challa to come talk to her. Moving, always moving.

“Okay, let’s get you set,” Claire said, maneuvering around the two men in her already-cramped exam room to reach a cabinet in the corner. She pulled out a heat pack and two un-chilled ice packs, dumping them unceremoniously in Bucky’s lap. She draped a frozen one over his shoulder herself. “You know the drill. Ice, heat, painkillers.” She handed him a fresh bottle of Naproxen. “Come back every day so I can check on it, et cetera. And don’t touch a bat, a mitt, even a ball. Okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” Bucky stood up with his armful of medical equipment and left the room. Steve followed, and Claire shut the door behind them with a snap.

“It’s just cuz they’re worried about you,” Steve said, his voice low. “I am too,” he added, even quieter, like a confession.

“I know.” Bucky looked down at his full arms. “I just…this isn’t what I’m meant to be doing.” He shifted the ice pack on his shoulder, wincing when he jostled the joint. “I just  _ got _ here. I’m supposed to be helping the team, doing my job—”

“You can’t help anybody if you hurt yourself worse,” Steve said. He stuck his hands in his pockets to avoid the stupid urge to pull Bucky into a hug, because he looked so miserable. “I gotta go finish warm-ups but we’ll talk later, okay?”

“Yeah, okay. See you later.” Bucky turned and started toward the locker rooms, and Steve watched him go, feeling helpless and desperately sympathetic. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -The Collective Bargaining Agreement: This is real, and everything I said about it is true (as far as I know), including the part about how sometimes hotels get messed up and they have to share. I have no earthly idea if baseball players eschew the contract and share hotel rooms on a more regular basis than when hotels get confused, but I erred on the side of caution and decided that unless they’re dating, I highly doubt it. (And, as I brought up in the glossary, baseball players do not date each other as far as I’m aware.)
> 
> -Baseball fights: As Bucky mentions, they sure do happen. They’re dumb as fuck but extremely fun to watch. They usually happen because a pitcher hits a batter with a pitch, and when the two teams have a lot of beef/heavy rivalry. If you’re curious, look up a video, they’re all over YouTube. I recommend the one from a 2018 game between the Red Sox and the Yankees, in which a very skinny pitcher named Joe Kelly rocks the Yankees’ batter’s shit despite the Yankees player being a beefcake. 
> 
> -DFA’s: I knew I’d have to explain this, because I glossed right over it in the fic ‘cuz it didn’t seem to warrant definition within Steve’s POV. A DFA is a Designate For Assignment order. It essentially means that a team fully releases a player from their contract and cuts them completely loose, although they’ll pay the player’s salary even when another team signs the player, which does usually happen. What happened to Bucky, with his DFA, is not uncommon, although I’ve never heard of it happening because a player had been injured.
> 
> -The IL: The IL is the Injured List, and it’s how teams designate which players are injured so they can fill their spot while they’re recuperating without removing them from the roster entirely. There are many ways to put a player on the IL—day-to-day, so they could come back anytime; ten day, so they spend minimum ten days off the field; 60 day, if it’s really bad; and sometimes indefinitely. Note: there’s also a Bereavement List, which is similar, but it’s for players who experience a significant issue in their personal life that requires two-to-three days off. Usually used for the death or illness of a family member.
> 
> See you guys next week! Thank you to everybody who's left kudos and commented so far, y'all are the sweetest.


	5. The All-Star Break

They won their last two games in Toronto, but narrowly. T’Challa was clearly annoyed about being a catcher again, and although he did his best despite this, there was only so much he could do. Idly, as he jogged toward the mound to close out a tense one-run lead, Steve wondered when Morita would be fit to be back-up catcher again.

But he didn’t think about it too much once the score was in the books and they were all loading onto the plane for the All-Star Break. 

Everyone else seemed to be relaxing too, getting ready for their one vacation of the season. They had four days off for the All-Star game, which most of them wouldn’t be playing in—you had to be voted in by the fans to form one team from each League, and your odds tended to not be good. So with the exception of Luke Cage, Tony, and Thor, they all had a well-earned few days off.

Bucky seemed to be in better spirits, clearly pleased that he was going to be able to rest up his shoulder without missing games for a few days. In fact, as they settled next to each other on the plane, Bucky turned and grinned at him. “Got any plans for the break?” he asked.

“Oh, Peggy and Angie’re coming to visit,” Steve said. Peggy had called the night before and arranged it—they were coming to see him for the first couple days, but they couldn’t stay the whole time.

“That’s nice,” Bucky said, leaning back in his seat as the plane took off. “Becca might be coming down too.”

“Oh, that’s great.” He stayed quiet as they climbed to cruising altitude, watching the clouds out the window. Then he leaned in and nudged Bucky, careful not to jostle his injured arm. “Hey, I want to ask you something,” he said lowly. The plane was quiet now—a lot of their teammates were asleep.

“Okay,” Bucky said, a little warily.

“Do you still have my number?”

Clearly taken aback, Bucky gamely reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, tipping the screen so Steve could see the contact that said “Steve Rogers” with a baseball emoji next to it. “Looks like it,” he said. “That still right?”

“Yeah.” Steve nodded, smiling a little. “I just figured…since we’ll have some downtime, in the same city, we could try to get together in between our various visitors.”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Bucky said, grinning. His eyes looked brighter than they had the past couple of days. 

“Cool.” Steve felt a little  _ swoop _ in his chest that Bucky actually wanted to see him outside of baseball pretenses, and decided not to examine the feeling further.

They fell back into companionable silence, and Bucky fell asleep with his head against the window. Steve stayed awake and watched as they flew into the city, the lights of New York lighting up the clouds.  _ Home sweet home _ .

* * *

His first day off, Steve was woken up at a little past eleven am by his phone ringing. He groggily leaned up on his elbows and pawed for the thing, trying to make it shut up. When he saw the time, he bolted up and threw his legs over the side of the bed, picking up the phone at the same time. “Hey, Peg,” he said, his voice scratchy. He dug a finger into the corner of one of his eyes.

“Angie and I are here, darling,” Peggy said. “Or, at least, we’re in the city. Are we meeting at that diner for lunch still?”

“Yeah, yes.” Steve stood up and tried to go in two different directions—to his closet and to the bathroom—and slipped, almost falling over. “I’ll see you at noon.”

After he hung up, he sped-run through his morning routine, wondering how the hell he’d ended up sleeping in so late. He very rarely slept past seven, hadn’t really since he was playing college ball. As he hurried out of his apartment to meet Peggy and Angie, he ran his hands through his hair and wished he didn’t feel so muzzy—but sleeping four extra hours tended to do that, he supposed.

He got to the diner at five till, almost skidding to a stop outside of it. It was the diner that he and Peggy had frequented a lot when they’d lived here together—always open and very cheap, perfect for two struggling recent grads. It was also where Angie had worked before she’d opened up her own in Boston. In fact, this was where Peggy and Angie had met. It held a lot of memories.

They were waiting for him in a corner booth, and Angie let out a raucous cheer when he burst through the door, which made Peggy laugh. They both got up to hug him, and for a few moments, it was a mess of excited greetings and “how are you”s and trying to figure out what to eat.

But eventually they settled down, Steve with a massive, messy burger and a beer and the ladies with club sandwiches. Peggy gave him lively updates on the lawyer life, and Angie tried to one-up her with stories of strange patrons in her diner.

When they were done eating, the conversation quickly turned to baseball. “Are you sad to not be in the All-Star Game?” Angie asked.

Steve chuckled. “Not really.” He’d gone a couple times, during his one season with the Giants and one of his past two seasons with the Dodgers. But pitchers were picked by coaches, not voted in by fans, so it was a tougher process. It usually meant more about skill than popularity, unlike the position players. And times like this season, he didn’t feel like it was worth it to sacrifice his only four days off.

Peggy leaned forward on her elbows and surveyed him. “What are your playoff chances, do you think?” 

“Better than the Yankees,” Steve quipped, which started a good-spirited argument. 

They spent the rest of the day doing basic New York City shit, pretending the three of them hadn’t lived in the city for huge portions of their lives. As they walked past the Brooklyn Bridge, Steve wondered idly what Bucky was up to, and if he was entertaining himself in the same way they were. He wondered if they’d run into him, somewhere in the city.

They tuckered themselves out by dinnertime and returned to Steve’s apartment, where he did up his guest room for them while they invaded his kitchen to cook. 

Or rather, Angie cooked while Peggy watched her over a glass of wine. Steve rolled his eyes and wished he could crawl back into the old days when he and Peggy had run this town—but then she and Angie wouldn’t be together, he supposed. Shit happens for a reason.

They ate Angie’s homemade stir fry on the couch, watching sports news and making sharp comments about other teams. “The poor Orioles,” Angie said, struggling to pick up a pea pod with her chopsticks. “They used to be good!”

“They need new management,” Peggy said. She reached over and picked up the pea pod for her fiancée, holding it up so Angie could eat it off her chopsticks. 

“Unless they accept that analytics are part of baseball now, new management isn’t gonna do shit,” Steve said. “And honestly, it’s nice having a consistent punching bag in our division.”

“In other AL East news,” the anchor said on the screen, “an injury update during the All-Star Break on James Barnes, the Dodgers’ new catcher. According to a team spokesperson, Barnes will miss at least two more games on the other side of the break, raising concerns about his readiness.” A picture of Bucky floated on the green screen behind him.

“I gotta say,” said the other talking-head, in that tone that made Steve think he didn’t  _ have _ to say anything, “this really raises a lot of questions about Barnes’s reliability. This guy’s sat out like half a season with the shoulder injury he got with the Hydras, and he’s rehabbed for a  _ year _ in the minors, shouldn’t he be ready to go by now?”

“And now he gets called back up and he’s on the IL almost within a week,” the first anchor said grimly. “Not the picture of a dependable player.”

Fed up, Steve changed the channel with a savage stab of the remote. The aggravating commentators were smoothly replaced with House Hunters. 

Peggy and Angie were both looking at him. “How  _ is _ your new catcher?” Peggy asked casually.

Steve sighed, trying to ignore the little drop in the pit of his stomach at the mention of Bucky. “Bucky’s good. I like him, he’s steady and he’s a team player.” He waved at the TV irritably. “They’re wrong, this whole IL thing just precautionary.”

Peggy hummed. “Bucky,” she said, saying his name slowly like she was trying to remember something. “You know, I recognized him. He played with you, four years ago, out in LA.”

“Yeah, we were in the minors together for a season.” Steve turned the volume down as the couple on-screen began to squabble over house location.

“Your  _ first _ season.”

When he looked at her, her eyebrows were raised. Angie was looking between them curiously. “Yeah, my first season,” Steve said slowly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” Peggy returned to her food, and Angie jumped on the opportunity to excoriate the House Hunters couple for not understanding how pre-furnished houses worked.

Afterward, as Steve was doing the dishes, Peggy followed him into the kitchen and leaned against the counter while Angie channel-surfed. “You like this Bucky, huh?” she said, propping her chin in her hand and tilting her head at him.

“Yeah, I do.” Steve shook the excess water off a bowl and put it in the dish-rack. “He’s…” Words failed him suddenly. Everything he was going to say suddenly seemed too intense: funny, trustworthy, talented—he couldn’t say that shit. That would be weird.

Peggy, who had always possessed the uncanny ability to seemingly read his mind, made a soft noise of comprehension. “You  _ miss _ him,” she said, clearly suppressing a grin. 

“I…do not,” Steve said. Why was he blushing? What the fuck was this?

“Uh huh.” Peggy sounded thoroughly amused now, and when Steve flicked the water off and turned to stare at her, she giggled. “Don’t look at me like that! It’s not my fault!”

“I don’t  _ miss _ him,” Steve insisted, even though he could feel in his gut that it wasn’t true. 

“Whatever.” She crossed over to put her empty wine glass in the sink for him to wash. “Either way, you should hang out with him after Angie and I go home tomorrow.”

“Sure, whatever.” Steve shook his head and stuck a sponge into the wine glass. “Can you leave me alone now?”

“Of course, dear.” Peggy swept back into the living room, and Steve leaned against the sink, watching the water run with unseeing eyes. 

He didn’t  _ miss _ Bucky, did he?

* * *

The next day, the three of them wandered around to more old haunts in the city before Peggy and Angie caught their plane back to Boston. Steve saw them to the airport, and Angie threw her arms tightly around his middle as a goodbye. Peggy did the same, and as she pulled away, Steve caught her by the back of the head and kissed her forehead. “See you soon,” he said.

“Goodbye, darling,” she said, and she and Angie both waved as they disappeared into the security line.

With a sigh and his hands in his pockets, Steve wandered back out into the warm, early-evening air. Summertime in New York smelled like warm asphalt and sweat, and Steve found himself missing the smells of a baseball field instead, even though he’d only been away for two days.

And he missed Bucky. Goddammit.

Before he could stop himself, he picked up the phone and dialed Bucky’s number. Bucky picked up after two rings and said, rather nonsensically, “What’s up, Becks?”

Steve paused. “Expecting someone else?”

“Oh. Steve?” Bucky sounded nonplussed. 

“That’s me,” Steve said. “How’s your break going?”

“So far, I’ve slept a ridiculous amount and seen my sister. I’ve now exhausted my means of entertainment and am slowly going crazy, and have decided that I either need to get a dog or a life outside of baseball.” 

“Sounds great,” Steve said, trying not to laugh. “If you’re bored, I was thinking we could maybe do something tomorrow. Work out, maybe?”

“I gotta see Claire tomorrow about my shoulder, so that works out, I’ll be in the clubhouse. Wanna come meet me after?”

“Sure,” Steve said, smiling.

“Uh, see you tomorrow then,” Bucky said. He sounded pleased, or at least, Steve thought he did.

“See you tomorrow.” He hung up, nonsensically pleased that Bucky wanted to hang out with him. 

* * *

Steve met Bucky at Ebbets the next day. When he got there, Bucky was waiting outside for him, leaning against the brick wall with one foot cocked back and pressed flat to steady himself. When he saw Steve coming, he grinned. “Hey! Claire said I’m all set to work out.”

“Oh, that’s great!” Steve led the way inside. “Did she say anything about when you could get out and play again?”

“Still two games after the end of break,” Bucky said, and he was so casual with it that Steve decided to definitely not mention the sports news anchors who’d been so bitchy about the whole situation.

“That’s pretty good.” Steve flicked on the lights of the weight room.

“It’s certainly not bad.” Bucky headed right for a treadmill, and Steve surmised that they were done chatting for now. He didn’t mind. He liked private gyms for two reasons—not being recognized, and the quiet. The gym at Ebbets was perfect.

Steve started by warming up his throwing shoulder, which made Bucky roll his eyes when he saw. “Pitcher’s and their arms,” he muttered, and sped up the treadmill.

Feeling challenged, Steve wandered over and pointed at the machine next to Bucky’s. “Okay, smart guy. Wanna race?”

Bucky stopped his machine and stared at him. “It’s a treadmill,” he said. “We won’t go anywhere.”

“I’m not stupid,” Steve said, rolling his eyes. “Odometer. First to a mile?”

“I think I’m at a disadvantage here,” Bucky said, waving his hand in the vague direction of his chest, which was already rising and falling faster than Steve’s, as he’d already  _ been _ running.

“I’ll go easy on you,” Steve said, grinning wickedly. “What’s the matter, think you’ll lose?”

Bucky glared at him. “You’re on, Rogers.” He started running again. 

“Okay, now  _ I’m _ at a disadvantage,” Steve said, starting his treadmill with hurried fingers. “You’ve got a head start.”

“Shut up and run,” Bucky said, grinning.

The bickering had to be put on hold after that so they could breathe. But when Steve saw Bucky closing on a mile, he sped up by such a noticeable pace that Bucky looked over at him and snapped, “Quit showing off.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Do you think that’s an insult somehow?” he said, panting.

“You’re a punk,” Bucky grumbled, pressing a hand to his ribs. 

“Jerk,” Steve replied readily. “Also, I’m gonna beat you.” He pointed at his odometer.

Bucky made a spluttering noise and picked up the pace, but it wasn’t enough. Steve whooped as he crossed the mile mark and hopped off the treadmill. Bucky made a face and looked away as he turned off his own machine, grinning in spite of himself. “You’re a dick,” he said, flicking sweaty hair out of his eyes.

“Oh, please.” Steve moved away and grabbed water.

Bucky stood there and breathed for a minute, before heading over to a corner to follow some sort of workout routine. Steve watched him for a moment before doing the same, and they fell back into companionable silence, doing their own thing. They were focused on different things, anyway—Steve was working his arms and his back, focusing on his throwing arm, while Bucky was doing box jumps and all kinds of shit to build up his leg muscles to help him crouch in the dirt every day.

In fact, as Steve watched, Bucky started doing squats. As he finished one, he suddenly cut his eyes over in the mirror to meet Steve’s gaze. Steve, who hadn’t realized he’d still been staring at Bucky, quickly looked away. Blood rushed to his face, and the more he wished it wouldn’t, the more it did.

Out of the corner of his eye, Bucky looked confused. Wanting to avoid the sticky moment, Steve said the first thing that came to his head: “Sit on my back.”

Bucky blinked, his mouth half open. “Why?” he asked when he’d gathered himself again.

Steve swallowed, watching a bead of sweat run down Bucky’s jaw. “I’m gonna do push-ups with you on my back,” Steve said. 

After a brief hesitation, Bucky shrugged. “Okay, sure.” He crossed the gym to get to Steve’s side, crossing his arms. “I used to do this with my sister, but she was really squirmy.”

Steve got on his hands and knees and waited for Bucky to get closer before he got into plank position. “Come on, let’s do it,” he said.

Bucky ghosted his weight over him. “Fifty bucks says I can do more than you can.”

“If I sit on you? You’re on.” Steve grunted as Bucky’s full weight settled on his back, and started into the push-ups, muttering, “Jesus shit” which made Bucky chuckle. He managed to do a little over two dozen before his muscles, already tired, decided enough was enough—he could barely lift his own weight, let alone Bucky’s. He collapsed and Bucky landed heavily on his lower back and they fell to pieces laughing for a moment.

“You’re gonna be so embarrassed when I kick your ass,” Bucky said when they switched places.

“Oh, you say that now.” Steve sat on Bucky’s back as soon as he finished speaking.

“Christ,” Bucky said fervently. “You are  _ heavy _ .”

“Had a big breakfast,” Steve said, nonchalant. “Let’s go, Barnes.”

Bucky did his best, but Steve had an advantage—both heavier and physically stronger, so it wasn’t really a fair fight. In fact, Steve could feel Bucky’s arms shaking, and he was about to tell him not to push it when Bucky’s left arm crumpled.

Steve yelped and slid off him immediately, trying to help.

_ “Shit,” _ Bucky hissed, letting his upper body sag. He rolled into a sitting position, cradling his left arm.

“Are you okay?” Steve reached out for Bucky’s wrist. “Shit, this was a bad idea, with your shoulder, damn I’m sorry—”

“I think it’s okay,” Bucky said, interrupting his guilty stream of consciousness. “It doesn’t, like…it doesn’t hurt, much.” But he looked shaken. “I should probably check in with Claire anyway.”

“Okay.” Steve stood and grabbed Bucky’s right hand, pulling him fluidly to his feet. “Let’s go find her.”

Claire looked exasperated when they opened her office door. “It’s always you two,” she muttered, reaching automatically for Bucky’s shoulder. “What’d you do?”

“Pushed it a bit too far, I think. Just wanted to check.” Bucky didn’t wince or flinch as Claire manipulated the joint, which made Steve feel significantly better.

“You’re fine,” Claire said, releasing Bucky. “Don’t push it again, though.”

“You got it.” Bucky saluted a little half-heartedly.

“Now scram, both of you.” Claire shooed them out, and Steve led the way down the hallway toward the exit.

“Guess that’s it for the workout,” Bucky said, massaging his shoulder idly with his right hand.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Steve shoved his hands in his pockets and smiled. “Still, it was good till I almost broke your shoulder again.”

“Oh, please, it’s fine.” Bucky waved him off. “Hey, I’m seeing Becca again tomorrow, so I won’t be around. But I’ll see you Friday, first game back.”

“Yeah, Friday.” 

For a second, the two of them kept standing there, as if they hadn’t just said goodbye. Something kept them rooted there. But then Bucky waved and set off, and Steve got his feet moving again.

He lazed idly around his apartment and wondered what on God’s green earth he was going to do with himself for a full day tomorrow, with no baseball and—and no Bucky.

He pulled his phone out and texted Bucky.  _ You still owe me 50 bucks _ , he said.  _ You don’t get a free pass for a bum shoulder _ .

A few minutes passed, and then his phone lit up with a response:  _ You’ll have to kill me for it _ .

Steve chuckled.  _ Get ready for Friday, then _ , he said, with a knife emoji.

A much shorter pause, and then Bucky sent back:  _ Punk _ .

Steve said:  _ Jerk _ . And that was that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't think of anything that needs further explanation in this chapter, unless the All-Star Break itself needs more clearing up. If so, let me know! And thanks everybody for reading :)


	6. The Hydras

The All-Star Break ended quietly, and when the first game started, Steve felt like he should’ve appreciated his days off more. Now the second half of the season loomed, large and daunting. Games would mean a bit more now as divisions fought for playoff spots, and the dog days of summer stretched out ahead of them, long and hot and full of baseball.

Their first series back was an away series against the Rays, the beginning of a traveling swing of three four-game series’ in the AL East. Steve would’ve preferred not to spend their first twelve days back on planes and in hotels, but it couldn’t be helped. The team fell back into old routines, joking around and sleeping on the plane and heckling each other in the dugout.

The first two games in Tampa were uneventful but a bit shaky as the Dodgers worked to find their team stride again. Steve pitched the close for just one of them, and this time, Nat had Jim Morita catching. His ankle was all healed up, which made Steve feel better. Once Bucky was cleared, they’d have a full-time catcher and a proper back-up, which was a massive relief.

In fact, that night, after the end of the second Rays game, Bucky came bounding back to the hotel in high spirits. “Claire says we’re good to go!” he said, rolling his shoulder as if to prove that he was all better. 

“Oh, that’s great!” Steve yanked him into an impromptu bro-hug, which seemed to startle him but didn’t dull his grin. “Playing tomorrow?”

Bucky nodded. “Nat says so.”

“Hey, Barnes, Rogers, we’re all heading up to Pietro’s room,” Rhodey said, interrupting them. “He’s got his X-Box.”

“Because he’s a child,” Bucky muttered, but they followed the group up anyway. It was an eclectic mix, Steve realized when they settled across the beds and floor—Tony, Rhodey, Bruce, Clint, Pietro, him and Bucky, and Morita. But then again, there weren’t really any strange mixes on a close-knit team like theirs.

Pietro was playing the MLB video game, and he and Rhodey and Clint were squabbling over the makeup of their team. Steve settled for scrolling idly through his phone, while Bucky seemed to be lost in thought, staring blankly at the television screen. Then he made a strange motion and looked around before hopping off the bed and sliding up next to Morita.

Steve watched them quizzically as Bucky held up his left hand and showed Morita his fingernails, and Morita immediately zipped out of the room, propping the door open behind him so it wouldn’t lock. Nobody else seemed to notice.

Frowning, Steve leaned toward Bucky. “What’s that about?”

Bucky turned and displayed his fingernails for Steve as well. “Nail polish,” he said.

Steve made a soft noise of comprehension. Catchers sometimes painted the nails of their throwing hand to make it easier for pitchers to see the signals they were putting down when they called pitches. Bucky, being what Steve considered a prime example of a thoughtful teammate, always painted his nails when pitchers asked him to. (Steve personally didn’t care, but Luke was pitching tomorrow and he liked the extra boost.)

But obviously Bucky hadn’t painted his nails since he’d been injured, and apparently he’d forgotten to bring any nail polish along.

Morita reappeared with a neon yellow bottle and passed it to Bucky. With a murmur of thanks, Bucky stood and vanished into the bathroom.

For a few minutes, Steve watched as his teammates argued over whether they should have Astros players on the team they were building, with Tony making the argument that maybe they should compose the teams of just Dodgers players. 

He heard a soft  _ “Shit” _ from the bathroom then and decided to investigate.

He announced his arrival with a soft knock on the door frame, and Bucky jumped when he turned to look at him. Steve took in the scene with raised eyebrows. Bucky had spread a towel on the counter, and in his attempt to paint his left thumbnail with his non-dominant hand, had smeared bright yellow polish over his skin. He was now fishing in a drawer, presumably for something to wipe it off.

“You doing all right in here, Buck?” Steve asked, trying not to smile.

“Oh, haha,” Bucky snapped. He gave up on trying to salvage the paint on his thumb and set to rubbing it off under the sink. His skin stayed stained yellow around the nail.

“Do you maybe want some help?” Steve edged a little closer. 

Bucky frowned at him, but gestured invitingly at the nail polish bottle. “Sure. Be my guest.”

Steve moved closer, but paused to turn the fan on with his elbow. The smell was strong, and he was nervous about it getting dizzying.

“Yeah, sorry, forgot,” Bucky said, looking up at the ceiling as the fan started humming.

“No worries. I don’t really mind the smell, I just don’t want it getting too bad.” Steve came into Bucky’s space, and Bucky turned obligingly to make room and face him, turning his hand on the towel so his fingers were angled toward him. Steve picked up the bottle and smirked. “This is bright,” he said, swishing the brush around to coat it thoroughly.

“Well, it has to be, so you dumbasses out on the mound can see.” Bucky’s words were irritable, but his tone was good-natured. 

Steve nodded and reached for Bucky’s hand (Bucky’s eyes widened a bit), wrapping his fingers around Bucky’s wrist and lifting it to hold it in the air palm-to-palm. His skin was warm. “So I can see better,” he said, even though Bucky hadn’t asked, feeling a little embarrassed. “Like you said.”

Bucky didn’t say anything, just nodded minutely.

Steve had steady hands, if he did say so himself, and starting with Bucky’s index finger, covered his nails with a thick coat of polish. 

“Have you done this before?” Bucky asked, shifting slightly on the spot.

Steve shrugged and replied absently, “Peggy had me do her nails a few times. I was pretty good at it, it was fun.” Bucky’s hand was callused, but somehow still soft. It felt good in his palm, like it fit there.

Bucky grinned, wide and crooked. “Sounds domestic.”

Steve paused and looked up, cocking his head. “This was usually when she was Facetiming Angie and didn’t want to put down the phone.” 

“Ahh.” Bucky pressed his lips together as Steve maneuvered his grip to twist Bucky’s hand so his thumb was parallel to the ground. Steve painted his thumbnail in one slow brushstroke, then turned and stuck the brush in the bottle, not letting go of Bucky’s hand. 

“She always offered to do mine,” he said, “but I never took her up on it.”

“Should’ve said yes.” Bucky carefully extricated his hand from Steve’s grip, and Steve released him slowly, not sure why he was hesitating so much. “You could’ve ended up with a look like this,” Bucky said, holding his hand up with a grin. 

Steve snorted and picked up the nail polish bottle, screwing the cap on tightly. “Very tempting,” he said. “Are you telling me you never painted Becca’s nails?”

Bucky shrugged and started blowing on his nails to get them to dry faster. “No, but I watched her do it a lot,” he said in between breaths.

Steve watched him, trying to respond but finding himself incapable.

Bucky didn’t seem to mind, tugging the bottle out of Steve’s hand and sticking it in his pocket. “You can tell Peggy that her training paid off.” He examined his nails again, in between waving his hand around. “This is a stellar paint job, better than I’ve ever done.”

That got a laugh out of Steve. “Oh, she’ll be thrilled.”

Bucky led the way out after tossing the towel he’d ruined into the sink for Pietro to deal with. The other guys cheered when they came back in, because Tony wanted to play Steve on the X-Box game. Steve caught Bucky rolling his eyes as he handed the nail polish back to Morita.

As Steve tried very hard to figure out how to work this stupid video game (why would he play baseball on a console when he played it in real life? Ridiculous), he watched Bucky continue to blow on his nails out of the corner of his eye.

Maybe it was the nail polish fumes, but it felt a bit like the Earth had shifted beneath him. Like his stomach had dropped out, maybe, while he’d been holding Bucky’s hand.  _ Shit _ .

* * *

Bucky’s first game back was the next day. Steve watched him warm up with everybody from across the field, wondering how he was feeling as he went through the regular motions of throwing and catching and batting.

As Steve wandered around the dugout during batting practice, he heard Claire insist that they tape Bucky’s shoulder just for this one game. When Bucky reappeared out of the tunnel, he had bright blue KT-tape poking out from the edge of his uniform and was sighing as he put a helmet on to go back out for more batting practice. 

Sam, who’d been rubbing resin on his bat, sidled over and knocked on Bucky’s helmet. “You feelin’ good?” he asked.

Steve grinned and looked away as Bucky said, “You bet. Why, you worried about me?”

He heard Sam snort and say “Dream on,” but when he looked back over Sam was smiling and clapping Bucky on his right shoulder as he went to put his helmet away, and he caught Bucky smiling too. 

“Weirdos,” Steve muttered to himself.

The rest of the road trip passed without much event, although as Steve fell asleep in his empty hotel room every night, he found that he wished he was back in the hotel room in Toronto, sharing space with Bucky. 

They won the grand majority of the games they played. Bucky seemed comfortable slipping back into play—his shoulder wasn’t giving him trouble and the team’s pitching success certainly improved with him back behind the plate. He seemed to be in good spirits, joking around and hanging out with the rest of the team. 

After they finished up the last game against the Rays, they loaded onto the team plane to go home. Steve sat next to Bucky, as had become their routine. The nail polish job on his left hand was chipped now, but Bucky didn’t seem too concerned about it.

“Who are we playing when we get back to Brooklyn?” Bucky asked idly, leaning his head back against his seat.

“Uhh.” Steve pulled out his phone to look through the schedule and saw a three game series with a familiar, rather ugly purple logo. “The Hydras,” he said.

Bucky didn’t say anything.

Steve looked at him, trying to decipher his sudden quiet from his blank expression. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” Bucky bit his lip. “You’re sure it’s them?”

“Yeah.” Steve showed him his phone. “Your old team,” he added, his voice carefully casual, partially asking a question.

Bucky ran a hand through his hair, pulling the longer strands back before tucking his hat back on. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Not always fun to see them, honestly. But it’s only a few games.”

“True.” Steve kept looking at him, trying to figure out what was going on in his head.

Bucky didn’t say anything else, and eventually fell asleep. Steve didn’t bother him until they landed, and when they went their separate ways for the night, he wondered if maybe he should’ve asked more questions.

* * *

The next day, Bucky came to the ballpark in a cab, looking extremely irritated. “Becca stole my car last time she was in town,” he explained when Steve asked him about it during warm-ups. “She says a ‘true New Yorker’ doesn’t need a car, until she does and then she takes mine.” He snorted, and seemed to be perfectly normal, except for the tension around his eyes.

Steve was hanging out in the dugout during changeover from batting practice to pitching drills, making the most of the little time he got in there, when Nat came in. Bucky was putting on catcher’s gear (rather mechanically, Steve thought), getting ready to catch for somebody. Nat swept her eyes over the dugout, landing briefly on Steve, before she looked at Bucky. 

“Weird to play your old team?” she asked, snapping her gum.

Bucky looked up, and Steve could only see half of his face, but he looked peeved. “A little,” he said, going back to checking the straps on his leg guards. “It’s always odd to play against guys you used to play with.”

Nat hummed. “How’s your shoulder feel?”

“Fine,” Bucky said dismissively. “It’s fine.”

“Good to hear.” Nat didn’t ask him anything else, and Steve watched Bucky go out onto the field, feeling unsettled. It was a perfectly normal interaction, but why did he feel like Nat was fishing for something more in Bucky’s responses, just like Steve himself had been doing the night before? What was he missing?

He shook off the thoughts as the game started. For the most part, it went well. From out in the bullpen, Steve recognized a few players from back in their days in the minors, although most of those people had moved up long before he and Bucky had. He particularly noticed Brock Rumlow, who seemed determined to bump into Bucky as much as he possibly could—but then, Rumlow had always been an odd one. Everyone else was acting like any other opponent.

Danny Rand gave up three runs before Nat yanked him in the sixth inning, and the Dodgers at that point had only reciprocated two, with immense difficulty. When the seventh inning rolled around, the Dodgers managed to string together a couple of hits that put runners on first and third. Steve cheered with his teammates and watched as the Hydras’ pitcher shifted and sweated on the mound, clearly uncomfortable. He was obviously stressed, with only one out and the tying run ninety feet away.

But Rumlow, the Hydras’ catcher, didn’t do anything.  _ Are you not gonna talk to him? _ Steve was surprised. Bucky would be on his feet already.

Rumlow did nothing. So the next pitch their nervous and shaken pitcher threw was a bad one, and Tony swung hard and sent the ball skidding up the middle of the diamond. 

The second basemen got his glove on it and threw it home, but Rumlow fumbled the catch, and the tying run scored. Then, even after that, Rumlow didn’t talk to his pitcher. So naturally, Rhodey hit a long fly ball for a three-run home run. And even as Steve celebrated and shouted, exuberant at taking the lead so emphatically, he couldn’t help thinking about how much better Bucky was than Rumlow. He couldn’t believe the Hydras had just dumped him the way they had.

The inning ended quickly after that, and the three-run lead held through the end. Steve went out to finish up, but there wasn’t much tension in it. The blowout seventh inning seemed to have dampened the Hydras’ spirits, and they swung and missed halfheartedly at almost all of Steve’s pitches.

After the last out, Bucky pushed his mask up and came out to pull Steve into a quick hug, slapping him on the chest with his glove. “Nice pitching,” he said, his eyes shining. 

“Hey, I’m just the mopping up guy,” Steve said, shaking his head.

“Wanna go out? Get a drink?” Bucky asked, completely out of the blue.

“Uh, sure.” Steve grinned at him as they hopped down the dugout steps, his chest feeling warm. “Where—"

“Wherever.” Bucky reached his locker and yanked his hat off before wandering toward the showers. “I’ll be out soon, wait for me.”

“Okay,” Steve called after him. He shook his head and changed into a hoodie, filing out of the locker room with the rest of the guys that didn’t like showering here very much. But then, Bucky always got the sweatiest, what with all of the hot catching gear weighing him down.

Waiting in the hall, Steve caught Danny as he went by, and they started talking technique for his next start. Despite his mistakes that day, he’d pitched a quality start, and Steve told him so. Danny was grinning when he left, which counted for something, he supposed.

After that, though, Bucky had still yet to emerge. Frowning, Steve started pacing idly, just to pass the time. Then five extra minutes became ten, became fifteen. Curious now, Steve poked his head back through the door. 

Right away, he heard voices. “ _Christ_ , Rumlow,” said Bucky’s voice, sounding irate. “It’s been like _three_ _years_. Every time you’ve asked, I’ve said no! Why can’t you just take my word for it and leave me the hell alone?”

“It’s a pretty fluid situation,” said a voice that Steve recognized as Rumlow. “You could change your mind whenever. You’ve got a lot of power here, Barnes.”

Bucky made a frustrated groaning noise, and Steve crept into the room, feeling guilty but wanting to understand what the hell was going on. “You know what?” One of Bucky’s arms came into view around a corner as he gestured. “You’re right. Fuck it. Maybe I’ll tell Romanoff, maybe I’ll tattle to the owners, maybe I’ll go to the fucking  _ New York Times _ . Would that stop these little reunions? If my  _ answer _ changed?”

There was a pause. “Are you gonna tell people?” Rumlow’s voice sounded low, dangerous. Steve edged a little closer until they were both in view. The two of them looked furious, but in different ways.

“Maybe!” Bucky said. His eyes were flinty and hard. Steve had never seen him look so angry. “Maybe I’ll fill in the whole Commission and get the Hydras wiped completely out of the League. There’s so much fucking shit going on over there, I’m sure they’d do it. And if they don’t, if that doesn’t take, I’ll tell them how you  _ forced me— _ ”

Rumlow interrupted him by punching him in the face.

Bucky reeled back, slamming into one of the lockers and clapping a hand over his eye. “Fucking hell, Rumlow!” he shouted.

For a moment, Steve stayed rooted to the spot, shocked and confused. But Rumlow moved again, advancing on Bucky, whose hand slowly fell away from the ripening bruise on his face. “You wouldn’t  _ dare _ ,” he snarled. “You really think I’d  _ let _ you?”

Steve moved on instinct and strode into the room, getting in between them and shoving Rumlow, hard, in the other direction. “What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded, cocking a fist back in case Rumlow decided to escalate this.

But Rumlow backed away, stumbling. “I—this is just a misunderstanding,” he said, almost tripping over a bag lying on the floor.

“Yeah, like hell it is.” Steve turned away, to face Bucky, who had wide eyes and color high on his cheeks. “You okay?”

Bucky took a moment, his mouth still agape. But then he pushed himself upright, using the locker behind him, and said, “I’m fine.” He looked at his assailant across the room, who was staring at Steve like he was a ghost. “ _ Fuck _ you, Rumlow,” Bucky snapped. “Get the fuck outta here.”

Rumlow looked between them, his expression oscillating wildly between rage and fear. He finally growled, “Keep your mouth shut, Barnes,” and scampered.

Silence reigned around the room for a moment as Steve tried to get his heart to stop pounding, his adrenaline to slow the hell down. Then he turned to Bucky, looking for an explanation.

Bucky sighed heavily, then reached up and dragged a shaking hand down his face. “So now what?” he asked roughly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much to say about this one except that the nail polish thing is 100% true, and I'll see y'all in a week :)


	7. Bruises

Steve just kept looking at Bucky. “You tell me,” he said, as gently as he could. “What was that about?”

Bucky pressed his lips together and looked at Steve sideways, like he was doing a lot of fast calculations in his head. “It’s complicated,” he said finally.

They were quiet for another moment, and Steve shifted on the spot. “What do you need?” he asked. If Bucky wasn’t going to trust him, that was fine. He’d earn it.

“A ride,” Bucky said quickly. 

“Okay.” Steve didn’t ask any questions, remembering the cab Bucky’d been stuck with this morning. “My car’s not far.” He gestured at the door, indicating for Bucky to lead the way.

“All right.” Bucky pushed off the lockers and began to lead the way through the empty clubhouse, prodding idly at his eye as he went. It was swelling shut now—Steve watched him flinch when his fingers hit the skin along his cheekbone.

Once they reached the car, Steve circled it and opened the passenger door. Bucky scoffed but got in with a soft “thank you.”

Steve didn’t say anything on the drive until he needed to, asking for directions to Bucky’s apartment. It wasn’t far, and Bucky helpfully guided him to the resident parking so he wouldn’t get ticketed.

When Steve put the car in park, they both hesitated. Bucky seemed to be examining his knees with his one open eye. Then he looked over at Steve, his face in shadow, and said haltingly, “Would you mind, uh, coming up? Just for…a little bit.”

“Yeah, no, for sure.” Steve unbuckled and all but jumped out of the car, jogging around to open Bucky’s door for him again. He strongly suspected Bucky would’ve rolled his eyes if it hadn’t hurt.

He led Steve inside, across the lobby, up in the elevator. The apartment Bucky unlocked was small, but nice, and Steve knew New York real estate well enough to understand that it was classy—security on the ground floor, open concept living room and kitchen. Bucky turned some lights on, but only a few, letting the city lights wash in from the windows. That was the highlight of the apartment, Steve decided—floor-to-ceiling windows along the street-facing wall, showing the city. It was oddly comforting, like a gigantic nightlight. 

“So, uh.” Steve leaned from foot to foot in the entryway and surveyed Bucky, who was just standing there next to his squishy-looking couches, looking lost. “What now?”

“I just…” Bucky sighed. “I don’t know.” He half-laughed, but it came out like a sad wheeze. “I’m kinda jittery.” He held his hand out to prove it, and Steve watched his fingers shake.

“Hey.” Steve stepped a little closer, going slow in case Bucky wanted him to stop. “It’s okay.”

“No, I know.” Bucky turned in place. “I don’t know why I’m so freaked out.”

When he turned, his face caught more light. Steve, frowning, got closer and reached out (slowly), tilting Bucky’s chin up so he was angled even more into the light. He winced at the forming bruise, at the swelling that was still keeping Bucky’s eye mostly shut. “He got you good,” he said.

“Yeah, I guess.” Bucky’s voice was a little breathless.

Steve let go of his face (a little reluctantly, but now wasn’t the time) and crossed the room to Bucky’s fridge, yanking the freezer open and digging for a bag of frozen peas. He wrapped them in a dish towel and carried the makeshift ice pack to Bucky. 

Bucky took the peas with both hands, and Steve waited to let go until the bundle was pressed against his eye. They both hissed a little, Bucky from pain and Steve from sympathy.

When Steve was sure he was set, he backed up and leaned against Bucky’s counter, crossing his arms. “So. Are you gonna tell me what all that shit was about?” he asked.

Bucky sank onto the arm of his couch, facing Steve, and very suddenly looked exhausted. He looked at Steve with his unobstructed eye. “Not right now,” he said, a little tersely. “It’s…there’s a lot.”

“Okay.” Steve bobbed his head, feeling adrift. “What do you need from me, then?”

There was a pause. “You can go if you want,” Bucky said softly. “Thanks for the ride, and what you…what you did, back there, but—”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Buck,” Steve said quickly. “I just want to know what you  _ need _ , okay?”

Bucky closed his mouth and just looked at him for a moment, his face (the half of it that Steve could see) blank. “Why are you being so nice to me?” he asked finally.

“I care about you?” Steve said it like question, cocking his head. Why would Bucky even ask that? “I want to be sure you’re okay.”

Bucky processed that for a second and didn’t say anything. Then he sighed and said, all in a rush, “If you wouldn’t mind maybe spending the night here I think I’d really appreciate it if you could maybe stay.”

Steve raised his eyebrows and elected to let Bucky continue, because he looked tense.

“I mean, just on the couch, like out here. Or in the guest room, if you want, whatever. All I’m thinking is, like, another person…” Bucky trailed off, his eye wide.

Steve decided not to push it. “Of course,” he said. “I’ll stay.”

Bucky, still holding the bag of peas to his eye, smiled broadly enough that Steve could see it fold the skin around his open eye. “Thanks,” he said quietly.

“Don’t mention it.” Steve stood up straighter, pushing off the counter. “Do you want me out here or in the guest room?”

“Uh, guest room’s not made up,” Bucky said, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“Out here’s fine.” Steve chuckled. Bucky burst into action, digging blankets and extra pillows out of a closet and throwing them on the couch, spreading them out with one hand as he held the peas to his face with the other. Finally, Steve reached out and physically stopped him, insisting that he could handle it himself.

Ten minutes later, he was laying on the sofa and listening as Bucky went through the process of going to bed in the next room. It felt like a sleepover with some kind of really weird energy. Only when Bucky’s room had fallen silent and he was awash in the lights of the city did Steve begin to doze off, and once the light clicked off under Bucky’s door he fell into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

Steve woke up slowly with a shaft of sunlight in his face. He scowled and rolled over, but it persisted, and then a coffee machine began whirring. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and squinted, trying to figure out what was going on.  _ Is there someone in my apartment? _

Then he remembered where he was, and why he was here, and suddenly he felt a lot more awake.

He slowly got up, popping his back as he stood, trying to straighten it after a night on the couch. Bucky was in the kitchen, moving around quite a bit. “Good morning, sunshine,” he said without turning around, putting another mug under his Keurig. “Want some breakfast?”

“Sure, I guess.” Steve rubbed his face and wandered toward the kitchen, looking at the back of Bucky’s head. He seemed chipper, all things considered. “How are you this morning?”

Bucky sighed and paused, then turned around, letting the sunlight catch his face as he looked at Steve.

_ “Shit,” _ Steve hissed. “Fucking  _ yikes _ .”

“Yeah. I know.” Bucky pressed his lips tightly together, clearly pissed off.

His eye was truly black now, and the bruise radiated down along his cheekbone. It was dark blue and purple and maybe green at the edges—Steve was too far away to tell. But it looked bad, and painful. The only upside (truly the only one) was that the swelling had clearly gone down.

“Are you gonna  _ play _ like that?” Steve asked, sitting at the counter.

Bucky shoved a plate with buttered toast and some bacon across the table at him, and frowned. “Yeah, I am,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I? I’m fine.”

Steve blinked. “Okay, I know there’s a lot of…moving parts here, but I don’t get—”

“There’s nothing for you to get,” Bucky said sharply. “I am  _ fine _ .”

Steve looked down, hurt. He ate a piece of bacon and didn’t look at Bucky for a minute. He just didn’t understand the rationale. If Bucky wanted to keep whatever was going on a secret, going in with his face bruised all to hell wasn’t going to help. And, if Steve was honest, it made his stomach curdle to think of Bucky facing Rumlow again.

Bucky exhaled through his teeth. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was—I’m sorry.”

“’S’okay,” Steve said. 

“I’m…not scared of Rumlow,” Bucky said firmly, and Steve looked up to see that his eyes were clear and his hands were steady. “And everybody else can ask all the questions they want. But I’ve been out plenty with injuries, and I want to play, to contribute. A bruise on my face ain’t gonna stop me from being able to do that.”

Steve didn’t say anything, just looked at him.

“Besides, I’ll have my mask on,” Bucky said, pushing off the counter to dump the dregs of his coffee in the sink. “Nobody’ll even notice.”

Steve snorted loudly at that, and Bucky pretended not to hear.

* * *

People noticed.

“Your face looks like shit,” Pietro said, his accent mangling the words. 

“Where the fuck did you get a shiner like that?” Sam demanded as soon as Bucky and Steve walked into the clubhouse.

“Mind your business.” Bucky beelined for his locker and didn’t look at anybody or engage anybody in conversation. Sam looked at Steve over his head and made an exaggerated “what the fuck” motion, to which Steve shrugged helplessly. He wasn’t dumb—he could tell when he’d been sworn to secrecy.

Practice was tense. Their teammates learned pretty quickly not to ask Bucky about his face, because he started biting heads off around eleven AM. But nobody was ignoring it, and they were either giving him a wide berth or exaggeratedly wincing when they made eye contact.

Nat had no such qualms and yanked Bucky bodily into the dugout when everyone else was on the field, where they presumably had a very loud discussion. Steve watched them with one eye while he ran fielding drills on the mound, and saw Bucky gesturing angrily and Nat standing with her arms tightly crossed. Whatever the resolution was, Bucky came back out onto the field in an even darker mood than before, and Nat wouldn’t have a conversation with anybody all afternoon unless she talked first.

Claire came out when the stadium started to fill up, close to game-time, and wordlessly handed Bucky a bag of ice. Bucky took it and pressed it to his eye and didn’t look at her. Steve watched her shake her head and vanish back down the tunnel.

He gave Bucky another few minutes and then tapped his shoulder, wordlessly asking for a private discussion. Bucky rolled his eyes but acquiesced, following Steve into the clubhouse. 

“I just wanted to talk before I went out to the bullpen,” Steve said lowly.

“And say what?” Bucky asked, although with considerably more patience than he’d had most of the day.

“Just…are you sure you’re okay playing the Hydras?” Steve fiddled with the strings on his glove as he asked, feeling like he was stepping too hard on eggshells.

But Bucky just sighed. “I know I’ve been a douche today,” he said. “But honestly, I’m fine. I swear. But, uh. Thanks for—asking.”

“Sure thing.” Steve nodded, looking down at his hands. “I’ll see you…later. After the game, at least.”

Bucky hesitated, then took the ice away from his eye. (Steve tried very hard not to flinch, and mostly succeeded. The bruise was even darker now.) His jaw was set, like he’d come to some sort of difficult decision. “Could you come back to my place tonight?” he asked. “I mean—if you want to, you don’t have to—”

“No, I will if you want,” Steve said immediately.

“Thanks.” Bucky flashed an uneasy smile. “I really appreciate everything, Steve, I do. And…” He paused and closed his eyes for a second. “Never mind.”

“Okay.” Steve stood there for a moment, then tapped Bucky’s shoulder with his glove. “See you later then.”

“See you.” Bucky turned and went back into the dugout, leaving Steve standing by himself.

The game itself went fine, it seemed. Steve couldn’t really tell what was going on from the bullpen, but it seemed like Rumlow was completely ignoring Bucky, unlike last night. Every other Hydra was acting the same as the previous game—perfectly normal.

They lost badly enough that Steve didn’t even get up to warm-up, so he was cold and annoyed by the time the game ended. But it was the sort of boring loss where fans start tuning out around inning five, so he was also feeling oddly relaxed.

Bucky didn’t stay behind to shower this time, and met Steve in the hallway very quickly, apparently not keen to stick around. Steve drove them both to Bucky’s apartment, and Bucky wordlessly led the way inside.

This time, he started cooking—or rather, dumping leftover takeout into bowls and microwaving them. Steve sat quietly at the counter and just waited. 

Bucky spread the bowls around on the counter and sat down himself, still not really looking at Steve. His eye looked like shit. Finally, after eating a few bites, he inhaled deeply and looked up. “It’s a long story,” he said.

“I got time.” Steve speared a piece of orange chicken. “Try me.”

“Well, you’ve more than earned the truth at this point,” Bucky muttered. “I want to preface this by saying I’m  _ fine _ . But also, what I told you in Toronto about my time on the Hydras wasn’t the full truth.”

“I gathered as much,” Steve said dryly.

“No offense, but I wasn’t in the mood at the time to spill my guts all over the place for you to pick through,” Bucky said, although his tone wasn’t sharp, just tired. “No offense,” he said again, apparently in case it hadn’t stuck the first time.

“None taken,” Steve said, shrugging. 

Bucky nodded thoughtfully. “So, parts of it were true. The Hydras were too intense for me, too rowdy. But after I’d been there for a bit, I realized there was more to it.” He bit the inside of his cheek. “It was like, a combination of things. Subtle nagging not to call Becca as much or talk to anybody outside the team. Then insistence that I only hang out with teammates. One time Rumlow took my phone for four full days.”

“What?” Steve stared at him.

“Yeah, it was fuckin’ weird, but it got weirder.” Bucky shook his head. “It turned into…mandatory team hangs full of drugs that I was told I didn’t have to take, but I definitely felt, like...pressure to do so. One time Grant Ward offered me some pills and told me they were supplements, and I found out later he was trying to dose me.”

“Dose you with what?” Steve asked.

“T. Testosterone. Steroids.” Bucky looked him in the eye, his expression grave. “The sheer amount of juicing going on over there, Steve…it’s just fucking incredible.”

“Those are the rumors,” Steve said with dawning realization. 

“It’s how they hit so many homers,” Bucky agreed. “And one time, Rumlow successfully tricked me into actually taking a few doses, despite all my protests and the fact that I got out of it before. And when I found out, I panicked, ‘cos you know they really fuck people over for that if they find out and nobody would believe me that it wasn’t my fault, so I like…went to them and told them I was done with their shit.”

“What happened?” Steve felt a little breathless. This was  _ insane _ . And Bucky was talking about it so casually, like it could happen anywhere.

“Rumlow lost it, and Zemo lost it, and both Ward and Erik Stevens tried to hold them off but they’re all so beefed up and crazy…” Bucky trailed off. “It was two on one and I was a lot skinnier then. Someone completely dislocated my shoulder, and that was just…it.”

“ _ That _ was how you got injured?”

“Yeah.” Bucky visibly swallowed. “They tore something in my rotator cuff, I think. When they realized they’d actually hurt me, they ran off, and I got myself to the trainer. He told Pierce, and Pierce had my DFA ready to go by sun-up the next morning.”

“Jesus Christ,” Steve murmured. “That’s literally crazy, you know that? That shit is  _ insane _ .”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, shrugging. He reached up to rub his left shoulder, definitely an involuntary reflex. “I dunno.”

Steve gave himself a moment to digest what he’d been told, staring at the food in front of him, no longer hungry. “So why did Rumlow hit you?” he asked.

Bucky rolled his eyes, which rather looked like it hurt. “Rumlow's out of his fuckin’ mind,” he muttered. “He thinks I’m gonna tell somebody about all the juice over there, so every chance he gets, he drops by to ask if I’m still keeping my mouth shut like a good boy.”

Steve bit back the obvious question and took a second to run back the conversation he’d heard last night—Rumlow’s questioning, Bucky’s irate answers. “You told him you would tell somebody last night,” he said slowly. “That’s why he hit you.”

“He knew I wasn’t serious. He just freaked out,” Bucky said dismissively. 

“Yeah, like the time he fucked up your shoulder,” Steve said, his voice stiff.

Bucky looked at him, his eyes narrowing. “What are you saying?”

“This guy is violent!” Steve said, throwing his arms out. “And if what you’re saying is true, the Hydras have the most bizarre, toxic team environment I have  _ ever _ heard of. Drugs all over the place? Cult-like shit, with the whole taking your phone thing?  _ Forcing _ people to take steroids?”

“So what are you  _ saying _ ?” Bucky asked again, his voice measured.

“Maybe you  _ should _ tell somebody!” Steve said.

“Oh, come on. No.” Bucky stood up and put his dishes in the sink, slowly shaking his head. “This is why I didn’t tell you in Toronto.” Bucky gestured vaguely in Steve’s direction. “I knew you’d take this stance.”

“Why, because you knew I’d be concerned about you?” Steve looked at Bucky, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

“I am fine.” Bucky said sharply.

“Yeah, you look fine,” Steve said sharply, gesturing at his his black eye and the muscle jumping in his jaw. 

“Dammit.” Bucky put his face in his hands and took a deep breath. “Steve, you don’t understand. I want—I want to say something, but it’s not that simple. You don’t get it.”

“I think I have a pretty clear picture, actually.” Steve stuck his chin out mulishly.

Bucky kept his hands over his face. “It’s not just the team, okay? It’s everybody.” He rubbed his palms slowly down his cheeks, pulling on the skin. “It’s Alexander PIerce. It’s the front office. It’s the management. Guys with a lot of power to fuck my life up.”

Steve looked down. “I see.”

“If it’s just my word against theirs, I don’t really see how this can go my way.” Bucky shrugged hopelessly. 

“I still think it’s worth considering,” Steve said quietly. “Nat would have your back, and she’d know who to talk to—”

“It’s been like three years.” Bucky pulled a face, putting his hands up. “I just don’t have ground to stand on right now.”

“Right now?” Steve cocked his head. “Are you waiting for a better moment?”

Bucky hesitated. “I’ve…I’ve thought about it.” When Steve raised an eyebrow at him, he shrugged with one shoulder and looked away. “I just—the thing is, I can’t stop thinking about the fact that nothing changed when I left. There are rookies being called up every season, young boys who don’t know any better who are getting sucked into that cesspit, and I just…” He gestured loosely at his stomach. “It makes me  _ sick _ .”

Steve nodded, and in his mind’s eye, he could see Bucky as he had been when they played in the minors together, young and untested and about to be pulled into the Hydras mess. And he had another image in his head, of Bucky when he’d gotten signed by Nick Fury, a hollow-eyed shell of a boy whose shoulder ached when he made a fist. It made Steve sick, too.

They stood in silence for a while, until Bucky said, “So. Now you know.”

“Now I know,” Steve echoed. 

Silence fell once again. Bucky bit his lip and looked down, and Steve could sense that he was done with this conversation. They’d covered more than enough this evening, and Steve decided to let it drop for now.

“Do you want me out on the couch again?” he asked, pointing.

Bucky’s eyes widened briefly with relief, and then he chuckled. “No, I’ll fix up the guest room. Just give me a few minutes.”

Steve listened to him rustle around, making the bed, and tried to digest everything he’d learned tonight. The overwhelming feeling he was left with—he was surprised to find, beneath all the anger and confusion and stunned disbelief—was guilt, gnawing at his stomach. He should never have left Bucky alone in LA.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For any confusion, see the "Performance Enhancing Drugs" note in the glossary, or ask any questions you've got in the comments. Thanks so much for reading and commenting, guys! It means the world :) See you next week!


	8. Payoff Pitch

The next day, Bucky’s eye still looked dark but it was now turning sickly green on the edges, which meant it was beginning to heal. Steve didn’t even try to fight him about playing today, because he had no hope of Bucky actually listening. 

They won that day’s game, rather handily, and Steve watched from the bullpen as Rumlow once again studiously ignored Bucky. When the last pitch was thrown, Steve found himself rather relieved that the Hydras were finally leaving town.

For that matter, so were the Dodgers. They were flying to Boston tonight for a three game series against the Red Sox—and then right back home to play the Oakland Athletics.

Bucky was bright as they climbed onto the plane, getting into his usual routine of bitching about the ballpark they’d be playing in. They were never up to his standards, and Steve couldn’t but agree—nothing really compared to Ebbets, in his view. (Although, in his opinion, Fenway was a beautiful park.)

Once they settled in, Bucky tired himself out of complaining and fell asleep on Steve's shoulder. Steve froze when it happened, trying to suppress the warmness in his chest. Bucky was in a weird place, they’d just put the Rumlow mess behind them… Wouldn’t he be taking advantage if he enjoyed this?

What did it mean if he did anyway?

He sat stiff and tried to focus on something else.

When they touched down, nobody really felt like sleeping. Boston had a sort of  _ energy _ , so the team set to carousing in various rooms. Steve wasn’t really in the mood, but Bucky followed Tony and Clint into Clint’s room and accepted a beer, so Steve reluctantly trailed after him.

The furor over Bucky’s bruise had died somewhat, although people were clearly still curious. But nobody was really looking closely anymore. 

Steve let Sam put a beer bottle in his hand and perched on the arm of a chair. Sam stayed hovering near him, glancing at him and looking away whenever Steve looked back. Steve took a pull of his beer and cocked his head at Sam. “What?” he finally asked when Sam’s eyes darted back to him again.

“You’re kinda tense, man,” Sam said, shaking his head. “What’s going on with you?”

“It’s nothing,” Steve muttered into his drink. 

Sam snorted. “It’s obviously not.” He looked around, and his gaze landed on Bucky, who was talking animatedly with Pietro about something. His bruise stood out across the room. “Does it have to do with…?” Sam jerked his head in Bucky’s direction and didn’t finish his sentence.

Steve just sighed. “It’s really fine,” he said, and tried to get himself to relax. He was trying to figure out why he was so upset about this whole Rumlow thing when Bucky clearly wasn’t all that perturbed (and in fact, had barely ever been at all). Watching Bucky laugh across the room helped some of the tension go out of his shoulders, though. 

Sam didn’t push it, which was part of what Steve appreciated so much about Sam as a friend and a teammate. Instead he stood and drank with Steve and eventually helped pull him onto happier trains of thought. 

That night, Steve lingered as they all separated to go to bed, half-wondering if he should go with Bucky. But that was dumb, and he bid Bucky goodnight as they parted ways at the door of Clint’s room.

* * *

When they got to Fenway the next day, Bucky was clearly in good spirits. Steve shook off his remaining tension during warm-ups and was feeling loose and much more relaxed by game-time. 

The games in Boston went by swiftly and easily, and Steve only ended up pitching in the second one of them. It was good, fun baseball, which made Steve feel like a bouncy rookie again. 

Bucky’s bruise was almost entirely faded by the morning of the third game. He and Steve hadn’t talked at all about any of the crazy stuff he’d told him, and it was almost—almost—like none of it had even happened. And even when they sat next to each other on the plane home, Bucky only talked about normal stuff: Becca and baseball. 

The morning of the first game against the A’s, back home in Ebbets, dawned with much the same energy of the Boston games. But then it started badly, and shocked everybody out of their happy-go-lucky moods. Luke Cage, easily their best starter, gave up three runs in the first inning and racked his pitch count up to forty before he managed to get three outs.

And then, like whiplash, the Dodgers’ batters lit up the A’s pitcher for an answering four runs in the bottom of the first.

It was like a ping-pong game for the next few innings, and Nat pulled Luke in the very beginning of the third inning, which was record early for him. Steve watched almost in disbelief as Frank jogged out to replace their starter, and  _ immediately _ got shellacked by the A’s for another two runs.

It was like something was wrong with the baseballs. Almost every batter was getting hits, and not a single pitcher could keep it under control, on  _ either _ team. 

By the time the ninth inning rolled around, Steve had warmed up four different times. The score was sitting at 12-10 in the Dodgers favor at this point, having flip-flopped multiple times. The slim lead felt slimmer than normal thanks to the circumstances, and Steve wiped his throwing hand’s palm on his thigh as he jogged out to the mound.

This was their best chance to stop the bleeding and finish this game before more things went wrong. Steve dug his cleats into the dirt of the mound and ran the numbers: the Dodgers had been through four pitchers (five including him) and the A’s had gone through five and would soon be on their sixth. Every single person in the line-up on both teams had a hit, and almost everyone had scored a run.

Footsteps alerted him to someone coming, and he looked up in time to see Bucky coming to a stop in front of him. His mask was up on the back of his helmet, and the eye-black he had on under his eyes to counteract the sun was runny with his sweat. Still, despite everything, he was smiling.

“You’re fine,” he said immediately when Steve opened his mouth. “This is totally fine. Just pitch, okay? We’ll get through it.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. He swallowed. His throat was dry.

Bucky poked his shoulder with his glove and jogged back to the plate.

Steve managed to keep his shit together through the first batter and strike him out, but the tension only got thicker in the stadium. Bucky’s eyes bored into his, and Steve found himself sweatier than could be excused by the heat of the day.

His first pitch to the next batter was an automatic mistake. It was too slow and too close to center. Like a grapefruit, fat and ripe for hitting.

The hitter connected with a hard  _ crack _ , and Steve didn’t even have to turn around to know it was going over the left field wall. 

_ “Fuck!” _ He kicked the dirt and tried not to watch the guy run the bases. He also tried not to make any more noise, because he knew the TV mics picked up his swearing, and that always made him feel bad.

Bucky waited until the A’s player crossed the plate, then came back out to the mound.

“I fucked it up,” Steve said as soon as Bucky reached him.

“It’s one run,” Bucky said calmly, but there was a crease between his eyebrows and his shoulders were tense. “We’re still ahead.”

“There’s only one out,” Steve said hoarsely. “I don’t—”

“Just pitch to me, okay? C'mon.”

Steve watched Bucky go and wished he’d stayed longer.

He racked the next batter up to a full count and promptly walked him. Then the next guy hit a weak-ass ball that could’ve been a double play, but Rhodey fumbled it and the ball never made it to second to take care of the leading runner. 

Steve’s gut felt heavy, looking at the player standing in scoring position because he’d walked him, when they should be out of this fucking inning and on their way home with a win. But there were still two outs, and he focused on Bucky, and threw the next pitch.

This one should’ve been fine. It was a dropping curveball, and it was headed exactly for where Bucky had called it, and it should’ve left the batter swinging at the wrong part of the plate. But instead, he adjusted and made loud contact, lifting the ball into deep center field.

Steve spun on the spot and watched it fly, vaguely aware of everybody shifting around him as the A’s players took off running. He watched Pietro run after the ball, put on a burst of speed, reach his glove up—

and the ball fell and hit the grass.

Steve dropped into a crouch and put his face in one hand as the tying run crossed the plate behind him. 

Pietro threw the ball in at record speed, and Tony caught it and lobbed it back to Steve, everybody trying to make sure that the other runner wouldn’t score too. He pulled up at second, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.

Bucky was already there when Steve turned around. “I blew the save,” he said immediately. “It’s fucked, that’s a blown save—”

“Shut up,” Bucky said, but his tone wasn’t harsh. “Look. Look at that fucking scoreboard.”

Steve turned and looked at the scoreboard at center field, at the numbers saying 12-12 staring back at him and the messy-ass box score, littered with crooked numbers and high scoring innings. 

“This game is fucked up,” Bucky said clearly, his eyes wide and earnest. “It’s like…it’s cursed, or something, for pitchers. But  _ not for batters _ . And we’re lucky enough to be home for this sucker.”

Steve blinked at him, then quickly followed his logic. They were the home team. They got to hit last, have the last offensive say. If Steve could just get one more out, then all it would take would be one run in the bottom of the ninth…

Bucky nodded and started to smile when he saw Steve connect the dots. “Keep the score down, that’s all. One more out, and we’ll clean up. I  _ promise _ .”

“Okay.” Steve cleared his throat. “Okay, I’ll hold you to that.”

Bucky grinned and pulled his mask back down. 

The next batter dug in, looking determined. But Steve looked Bucky in the eye and watched his fingers move and focused on the one thought clanging around in his skull:  _ one more out _ .

He got two strikes on him, but couldn’t get the last one. He kept fouling his best stuff off, and the pitch count on this one at bat was closing on double digits. Both Steve and Bucky were getting frustrated, with Bucky’s signals getting jerkier as he got more annoyed.

Finally, Steve wound up and threw a fastball that painted the inside corner, and the batter held off it, sure it was a ball. But the ump grunted  _ strike _ , motioning for the out, and Steve punched the air, relief coursing through him.

Bucky met him at the dugout steps and thumped him on the back. “Perfect! Good job.”

“I still blew the save,” Steve said, tossing his glove on the bench.

“We’ll take care of it,” Bucky said, stripping his catching gear off. He grinned at Steve with glittering eyes and turned his helmet around. “Promise.”

Bucky himself had already scored two runs today, with three hits, two of them for doubles. He would be hitting third in this inning’s line-up. Honestly, Steve couldn’t help but believe him.

But Steve just nodded at him, unable to formulate a response with Bucky’s eyes on him, looking like that.

The inning started with Bruce hitting a scorcher of a single, right between first and second. Steve whooped with the rest of the dugout, reveling in being this close to the action. (The bullpen felt like a marooned island sometimes.)

Then Tony hit into a quick out at first, but it was enough to move Bruce safely over to second and into scoring position. Everybody rained high fives down on Tony when he got back to the dugout, even if he looked a little sour. 

Next up was Bucky. Steve watched him settle into place with his bat on his shoulder, and tried not to hold his breath.

Bucky let the first couple balls pass him by, idly swinging his bat between pitches, looking utterly relaxed. Steve didn’t understand how that could be. He himself was tightly wound like a spring right now, even with just one out. 

The next pitch was a speeding fastball, and Steve watched it come in, fully expecting Bucky to let it go. But Bucky stepped and swung, faster than the eye could see, and as his shoulders came around Steve heard him make solid contact. With a  _ loud _ fucking  _ crack _ . 

The dugout exploded and Steve watched with a slack jaw as Bucky’s ball soared into the right field stands, almost in slow motion.

The noise was  _ incredible _ . Like a wall, coming in from all sides. The dugout emptied and Steve let himself be carried with it, surrounding home plate as Bruce came jogging in from second, yelling and bouncing as he came to step on the plate.

Bucky was following close behind, and everybody hollered and sprayed water bottles and Gatorade at him as he came in, a grin splitting his face in half, to join their exuberant jumping ranks.

There were a few long moments of confusion and celebration as everybody bounced up and down as a single organism. Finally, they began to break apart, still sweaty and grinning. 

Steve started to elbow his way through the group to get to Bucky, feeling very strange. Almost light-headed, and his stomach was tying itself in knots. He wasn’t sure what he would  _ do _ , exactly, when he reached Bucky, but he knew that it was  _ something _ —

But a reporter snagged Bucky’s arm and tugged him to another part of the infield to do an impromptu postgame interview, as was customary for someone who hit a walk-off.

A walk-off two run homer. After a game like that. Steve shook his head, still feeling extremely odd.

He followed everybody else, still excited and loud, into the locker room. He changed slowly, his ears ringing. All he could think of was Bucky’s powerful swing, the frame of his shoulders as he made contact, the crookedness of his grin as he said  _ promise— _ like he’d known already what he’d be able to do. Like he’d predicted that he, personally, would be able to save Steve’s ass.

The locker room emptied as people headed out (still yelling), but Steve stayed behind, letting the quiet fill his ears.

Finally, he heard somebody else come in, and he turned to see Bucky. He was sweaty and smiling, and he perked up even more when he saw Steve. “Hey!” he said, coming over. “I was hoping you’d still be here.” 

HIs eyes were shining, and Steve couldn’t get his mouth to form words. 

“Didn’t I say?” Bucky asked, tipping his hat up to run his hand through his hair, making it stand up in little spikes.

“You did,” Steve said, his voice a bit strangled.

“I told you, I promised.” Bucky reached over and clapped Steve’s shoulder, and at that contact, Steve absolutely lost his cool.

He grabbed Bucky’s wrist and used it to pull him much closer, chest-to-chest, his other hand coming up to cup Bucky’s jaw. He just had time to see Bucky’s eyes widen before he leaned in and kissed him. 

For a shining moment, all was still. The roaring in Steve’s ears finally quieted, and he felt something settle in his chest, like an ache he’d been carrying for a long time had suddenly been released. 

Bucky was rigid, clearly surprised. But just as Steve started to think (hazily, barely penetrating his brain) that maybe he’d made a mistake, Bucky’s arms came up around the back of Steve’s neck and he began to kiss him back.

It was good, better than he could’ve imagined, if he’d allowed himself to. Steve could feel Bucky’s drying sweat on his nose, could smell the salt of him, could taste it. He rubbed his thumb over Bucky’s jawline, using his other hand to draw him in a little closer by his waist. He tilted his head down for a better angle and Bucky made a soft noise of appreciation, sliding one of his hands up to tangle in Steve’s hair. Steve reciprocated, knocking Bucky’s hat off in the process.

Suddenly, Bucky leaned back, breaking contact, even dropping his hands. Steve watched him go, feeling very cold all of a sudden. “I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be sorry,” Bucky said, quickly and breathlessly. His eyes were wide and darting around, searching Steve’s face. He was still close, and he glanced around the room before leaning back in for a very quick, searing kiss that ended way too fast. “Don’t be sorry,” he said again. “Maybe just…not here?”

“Yeah,” Steve said hoarsely, looking around furtively. “Yeah, all right.”

Bucky yanked his cleats off and stuffed his feet into street shoes, not even bothering to fully change his clothes. He reached for Steve’s hand, then apparently thought the better of it, and closed his fingers into a fist. “My place or yours?” he asked. 

“Uh. Yours?” Steve gestured at the door. 

“Sure, okay.” Bucky flashed him a grin, although he looked about as uncertain as Steve felt. It felt like the ground underneath both of them had become very unstable all of a sudden.

They left together, looking around furtively as if they were doing something wrong, and Bucky led the way to his car (which he must’ve somehow regained from Becca while they were out of town). Steve hopped in the passenger seat and turned to look at Bucky, whose expression was somewhat blank under the streetlights.

“What now?” he asked quietly as Bucky backed out.

“Uhh.” Bucky rubbed his bottom lip absently with one of his knuckles, and Steve watched him, replaying in his head how that lip had felt against his and how soon he could do it again. “I know I want to kiss you more,” Bucky said uncertainly. “If that works for you.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, feeling extremely ineloquent. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

They pulled up to Bucky’s place soon after that, and Bucky led the way inside almost at a jog. Steve watched as he unlocked the door with fumbling fingers, and then Bucky’s hands were on him as soon as the door started to swing shut behind them.

Steve made a soft noise in his throat as Bucky pressed their lips together. He cupped the back of Bucky’s neck with one hand, tilting his head up in a way that made both of them groan. Bucky stuck his hand under the hem of Steve’s shirt, which made Steve shiver, even though his fingers were warm.

Bucky took his mouth off Steve’s and started mouthing up his jawline, rolling up onto the balls of his feet so he could reach. Steve tilted his head back to give him access, breathing hard. “Buck,” he said softly. He inhaled sharply when Bucky bit down on a sensitive spot.

“Hmm?” Bucky hummed against his skin, his hands both fully under Steve’s shirt now, roaming around and mapping his chest. He was still wearing his uniform—the one of Steve’s hands that wasn’t on his neck was fisted in the back of his shirt.

“Should we—ah—talk about this?” Steve tugged gently on Bucky’s hair right at the edge of his hairline, getting his attention more properly.

Bucky drew back, his lips a little swollen. Steve was sure his looked much the same. “Do you want to stop and talk?” Bucky asked, his tone very sincere and his head tilted to the side. But his eyes were shining with barely-concealed mirth, and he ran one of his hands slowly up Steve’s side. 

Steve swallowed, acutely aware of the places where Bucky’s palms were pressed flat against his ribs. “Maybe later,” he hedged. 

Bucky grinned like a thousand watt bulb and closed the gap between them again, and this time, Steve didn’t stop to think as they eventually tumbled into Bucky’s bed together. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite the amount of gameplay in this chapter I can't think of anything that needs clarification, so let me know if you've got any questions! See you next week :)


	9. Seventh Inning Stretch

Steve woke up the next morning as suddenly and completely as if he’d been jolted. But he found himself warm, and sated, and he instantly knew where he was when he registered the solid body heat of Bucky tucked against his chest. He bit back a grin and nuzzled into the back of Bucky’s neck, keeping his eyes closed against the sunlight.

“Mmph. Good morning,” Bucky said, twisting a little in Steve’s grip—he had an arm slung over Bucky’s side and a leg stuck between his knees. Neither of them were wearing clothes, and Bucky’s sheets were soft against his skin.

“Good morning,” Steve murmured, muffled against Bucky’s skin. “Last night was fun.”

Bucky gently extricated himself from Steve’s grasp and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Yeah, it was,” he said quietly, and turned to look Steve in the eye, his expression open and soft. “That’s not all it was, right?”

Steve sat up on his elbow and smiled, running an idle hand over the warm spot where Bucky had been laying. “Of course not,” he whispered.

“Good.” Bucky’s face split in a grin and he leaned over to kiss Steve’s forehead, lingering there for a second before he got up and started hunting for clothes. Steve watched him, not feeling particularly motivated to get up. “I think that  _ does _ mean that we should have that discussion now, don’t you?”

“Ah.” Steve got up at that, because he’d rather have clothes on and maybe some coffee in him before they went down that road. As he tugged his pants on, he said as much to Bucky, who just shook his head and led the way into the kitchen.

This time, Bucky went all out with breakfast—eggs, bagels, bacon, the whole nine yards. Plus, of course, coffee. He sat across from Steve and tucked into his scrambled eggs, darting a look at Steve.

“Where do you want to start?” Steve asked. It felt supremely strange to make this 180 degree switch overnight, from friends to… _ this _ , and so casually, but it felt right when Bucky reached over almost thoughtlessly and took Steve’s free hand. Like he’d been waiting for this, maybe for a long time. Like they both had.

Bucky hummed, clearly thinking, his brows furrowed. “Like I said, last night wasn’t just fun for me,” he said hesitantly, idly playing with Steve’s fingers. “I…I sort of want this to be a real thing.”

“Me too,” Steve said quickly, and Bucky looked up at him through his eyelashes. “I think I’ve liked you for a long time and—I’d like it if we dated, y’know?” His cheeks felt like they were on fire.

A smile spread across Bucky’s face. “Yeah. Yeah, me too,” he said softly. His smile became a bit more crooked. “I’m glad I made you say that first, that’s so embarrassing.”

“Shut up!” Steve laughed. 

“There’s something else we gotta think about,” Bucky said, his eyes dimming a bit. 

“What’s that?”

“It’s less fun.” Bucky looked down at his plate. “We’re like…semi-recognizable public figures. We need to think about that and maybe…plan for it. Right from the outset.”

Steve digested this, the warmth that had been building up in his chest fading just a bit. This was a rather complex situation. They weren’t famous, but they certainly weren’t nobodies. It wasn’t like they were some kind of celebrity for whom any kind of dating was a publicity game—if Steve had wanted to date Peggy, for instance, literally nothing like this conversation would be happening. But they were both men. Which made things a hell of a lot more complicated than they normally were.

Bucky sighed when Steve didn’t say anything, making a face. “I don’t want the PR issues to make a mess of this before we even start,” he said, rubbing his thumb across Steve’s knuckles. “So maybe let’s just…keep this to ourselves for a little while.”

Steve nodded slowly. “Yeah, I agree.” He leaned a few inches across the table, making Bucky’s eyes widen. “It’d be nice to keep  _ you _ to myself for a bit.”

Color spread high over Bucky’s face, but he just grinned. “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

“We’ll have to tell Nat eventually,” Steve said, returning to the point as he leaned back again. “And maybe when we do that, we can loop the rest of the team in.”

“Sure.” Bucky bit his lip, his face still pink. “But for now…”

“Yeah.” Steve nodded again. “Just us.”

“Which means nothing—nothing romantic around the team.”

“Yeah, I know.” Steve smiled a little sadly, an expression Bucky matched. “We’ll talk more about next steps later.”

“Later? Oh shit.” Bucky looked at the clock. “We gotta go, don’t we?”

Steve laughed at him. “Yeah, we should’ve left like twenty minutes ago.”

Bucky rushed to dump their dishes into the sink and the two of them sped to the ballpark in Bucky’s car. 

As soon as they got there, Steve realized how much had changed inside his head. He found himself looking around for Bucky even more often than he already had, and when they were near each other, sought to stand close to him. He had to keep himself from reaching out to him, to hold his hand or do something equally obvious. 

If anybody noticed, they gave no sign—except Bucky, who was clearly fighting similar urges. At one point, just before the game started, they made searing eye contact between their teammates and Steve felt like this whole keeping-it-to-themselves thing wasn’t going to last very long.

The game itself went fine. The Dodgers had it won by the sixth inning, so Steve didn’t have to pitch. Bucky contributed with a long double that scored two of the pile of runs the team ended up with.

After it was over, Steve lingered in the clubhouse until Bucky found him, and they silently left together. It wasn’t until both of his car doors closed when both of them started talking, at the same time.

“That was so hard—”

“We need to talk again—”

They stopped and looked at each other, Bucky’s expression lost and unsure in the face of Steve’s statement. “Talk about what?” he asked.

Steve’s gut wrenched—he’d do anything to keep that wary, almost scared look off of Bucky’s face in the future. “Nothing like that,” he said quickly. “Just…we need to revisit the whole telling-people thing.”

“Oh.” Bucky relaxed and turned the ignition. “Yeah, okay.”

They were quiet on the drive home, but Bucky reached across the gear shift to hold Steve’s hand at one point. Steve looked out the window and tried not to grin, and gathered his thoughts.

When they reached Bucky’s apartment, Steve half-expected Bucky to jump him once they got inside like he’d done last night. Instead, they both quietly migrated to the couch and sat down, close enough to each other that their legs were touching. 

“What do we do?” Steve asked finally.

“I dunno.” Bucky’s voice was soft. “We go to Nat?”

“I feel like we should still keep it quiet, at least until we have a couple of weeks under our belts.” Steve leaned back and tilted his head up so he was looking at Bucky’s ceiling. “I don’t think that’s too unreasonable. But maybe...sooner than we thought.”

“Yeah, I agree.” Bucky, out of the corner of Steve’s eye, rubbed his forehead. “I just…really like you, and I’ve liked you for a long time, and I don’t like being secretive.”

“Me neither.” Steve sighed through his nose. “But this, not to be cliche, is a whole different ballgame.”

“Than what?” Bucky asked, and Steve could sense his eyes on him.

He bit his lip. “How long have you known you were gay?” he asked, instead of answering.

“Since I was in high school,” Bucky said readily. “Like, I slept with some guys in college. But I haven’t since I’ve been in the Majors.”

“Me neither.” Steve closed his eyes.

“How long have  _ you _ known?”

“I’m not gay,” Steve said, and continued, cutting Bucky off mid-retort, “I’m bi.”

“Ah.” Steve opened his eyes to see Bucky tilting his head at him, looking quizzical. “And how long have you known?”

Steve shrugged one shoulder and tilted his head down so he was looking at his lap. “College.”

Bucky waited, but Steve didn’t continue. His eyebrows went up. “Had you ever slept with a dude before last night?”

Steve stared at his clasped hands, and shook his head.

“I see.” Bucky’s tone was flat, but when Steve looked at him, he was biting down a smile. “Come on, I don’t care! That’s hardly relevant, don’t you think?”

“I guess.” Steve rubbed the back of his neck. 

“Don’t be a drama queen.” Bucky pushed on Steve’s shoulder, but he did it gently. “Back to the actual issue at hand, why’d you ask?”

“Cuz it’s gonna come up.” Steve felt himself relax a little, but not by much. “Because we’re gonna be the first openly gay Major League baseball players, if we decide to take it that far, never  _ mind _ the first Major League baseball players who are  _ dating _ each other. All this shit is gonna become a matter of public record.”

“I know that.” Bucky pushed off the couch and headed for the kitchen, opening the fridge. “I know how this works.”

“I just want to be sure you’re okay with that,” Steve said.

“Are you?” Bucky asked, looking at him with a searching, piercing gaze before turning back to survey the contents of his fridge.

Unable to keep sitting still, Steve stood up and followed Bucky to the kitchen. “Yes, I am,” he said, hugging Bucky from behind and resting his chin on Bucky’s shoulder. “I’m all in.”

Bucky leaned his head against Steve’s and smiled, reaching down to hold one of Steve’s hands. “Well, good. Then let’s just…take it easy and follow our guts, yeah?”

“Hearts, more like,” Steve said, pecking Bucky’s temple.

“That is  _ so _ gross and sappy, Steven.” Bucky laughed and gently pushed Steve off of him. “Now, c’mon, what do you want for dinner?”

* * *

The dog days of summer passed in a blurred stretch of time. Steve and Bucky’s relationship remained much the same, just with more time spent together outside of team events and with a lot more sex. When with the team, they were getting more practiced at threading the needle between pretending nothing had changed and avoiding outright lying.

Steve found, as the Dodgers played their way into the August heat and clawed their way to the top of their division (and  _ stayed _ there), that he’d never been happier. And he barely even looked at the team’s fantastic stats—it was all about Bucky. 

Around mid-August, after a few weeks, he and Bucky agreed to begin telling people. They started with Becca and Peggy; when Steve called Peggy, he thought Angie’s squeal was going to make him deaf. They insisted immediately that they were coming to New York that weekend to meet Bucky, and he was powerless to argue.

So he and Bucky found themselves waiting Angie’s old diner, and Bucky was bouncing his leg like an anxious toddler. “You’re gonna be fine,” Steve said, reaching over and grabbing his knee to still it. “Peggy’ll love you, and Angie loves everybody.”

“That’s true enough,” said a familiar voice over his shoulder, and he turned to see Peggy and Angie grinning at him. “Hello, darling,” Peggy added. 

A flurry of greetings followed, and Steve laughed at Bucky’s startled expression when both of the women ignored his proffered hand and yanked him into a hug. By the time they were all seated and somewhat settled, the tension had gone out of Bucky’s shoulders.

“So, Steve said this has been going on for some time now,” Peggy said after they’d spent a few minutes on “how are you”s. 

“Yeah,” Bucky said, darting a glance between the two of them. “It’s a shame it didn’t start earlier,” he added, and then promptly turned beet red.

“That’s so  _ sweet _ ,” Angie gushed, leaning over the table. 

“How much earlier?” Peggy asked, tilting her head.

Bucky looked at Steve, his mouth half-open. “I dunno, I—”

“I’m pretty sure I liked you back in Cali,” Steve said nonchalantly, shoving a French fry into his mouth. “So maybe back then would’ve been fun.”

Bucky visibly swallowed, then grinned. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

“You two are just adorable,” Angie said, propping her chin on her hand to gaze at them. 

“Thanks,” Steve said, feeling suddenly uncomfortable.

Peggy, noticing, launched into a story about work back in Boston, for which Steve was rather grateful. He listened without really hearing as Peggy told a rapt Bucky some story about a funny bank robber she’d helped with a plea deal one time.

After lunch was over, Bucky and Steve had to play a game; Steve had swung a pair of really good seats for Angie and Peggy to watch from, and they parted at the gates. Bucky relaxed a bit once they were alone and headed for the clubhouse, and Steve contemplated holding his hand, then thought the better of it. Instead, he reached out and wrapped an arm around Bucky’s shoulders. “You good?” he asked, voice low.

Bucky looked up at him, sideways, and smiled. “Yeah. I really like them, I’m just—nervous. Makes me tense.”

“I get it.” Steve nodded. “If you’re overwhelmed, just tell me and we can work something out.”

“No, it’s okay.” Bucky ducked out from under Steve’s arm to open the door for him, and grinned as they headed in. “Let’s go win us a ballgame.”

They did end up winning, but by the skin of their teeth. Steve pitched in the ninth with a one-run lead, Bucky’s eyes boring into him as they struggled to save the game. When the final out was called, Steve wanted very badly to at least hug Bucky, but settled for a stinging high five.

That night, back at his apartment, Bucky was much calmer as they sat through dinner as a foursome. Peggy and Angie had to go back to Boston the next day on an early flight, so Bucky excused himself early so they could get to bed at a reasonable time. Steve kissed him goodbye at the door and watched him go, feeling warm inside.

He turned back to find Peggy watching him, an eyebrow raised and the corner of her mouth curled up.

“What?” he asked.

“I like him,” she declared. “He’s good for you.”

Steve looked down at his feet. “You think so?” He felt his face get warm, and he couldn’t help smiling.

“Yes, I do.” She was still smiling softly at him when he looked up again, tilting her head. “You’re good together.”

Steve just nodded, words failing him. Peggy was the most important person in his life, although Bucky had somewhat supplanted that position. Having her approval for that meant more to him than he could express.

He didn’t get a chance, anyway, because Angie came running up with a wide grin. “Hey, look what I just found,” she said, holding out her phone to both of them.

They leaned in to see a Tweet of a picture, snapped from a distance, of him and Bucky as they’d walked to the ballpark this afternoon. The picture was a bit grainy, but it very clearly depicted Steve’s arm wrapped snugly around Bucky’s shoulders and Bucky tucked right up against Steve’s side.

It looked a bit too cozy, just this side of platonic, and Steve felt a rush of fear engulf him like ice was in his veins. Angie and Peggy were saying something, but he couldn’t hear them. All he could think was that he was so glad he hadn’t taken Bucky’s hand when he’d wanted to so badly, and then he felt sick that he had to think that.

Peggy was shaking his wrist. “ _ Read _ it, Steven,” she said sharply.

Steve narrowed his eyes and did so, and read:  _ Damn I love these two! Best bros on and off the field. #Brogers _

“‘Hashtag Brogers’?” Steve read out loud, incredulous. “What the fuck does that mean?” His heart rate was slowing back to normal as his panic receded.

“Nobody’s interpreting it as romantic,” Angie said, turning the phone back to herself and scrolling down the feed. “It’s a pretty common hashtag, though. It’s trending locally and it’s only getting more popular.”

“We’re  _ trending _ ?” Steve shook his head. “But what does it  _ mean _ ?”

“It’s a mash-up of your names,” Peggy said, sounding like she was trying quite hard not to laugh. “A rather uneven one, I must say, but I think they were trying to fit the ‘bro’ part in.”

“There’s a secondary hashtag,” Angie said, not looking up from the screen. “Trending alongside it, they’re usually Tweeted together—‘Brooklyn Brogers’, cuz it sounds like Dodgers, I guess.”

“This is insane.” Steve pressed he heel of his hand to his forehead. “I gotta…I gotta text Bucky.”

The rest of the night was spent on the couch between Angie and Peggy, as more Tweets went up and more pictures of the ‘Brooklyn Brogers’ were added to the timeline. The high-five from today was included, and pictures of him and Bucky conversing on the mound with their gloves up over their mouths and searing eye contact. Some of them made Steve blush, even though there was nothing explicitly romantic about them—but he couldn’t help it. He hadn’t expected this.

Later that night, a story even went up on some fringe “news” site (a step below Buzzfeed in trustworthiness, and multiple steps below in popularity) about his and Bucky’s “intense” friendship and bromance, with questionable sourcing but a lot of pictures to prove the point. It was re-shared a couple thousand times on Twitter, probably generating the most traffic the website had ever seen.

Bucky thought it was hilarious. He shared Steve’s acute embarrassment and confusion, but he also thought it was the single funniest thing he’d ever seen. Angie and Peggy shared that interpretation, but Steve appreciated Bucky’s take more, which he explained in a text when Steve had demanded to know why he wasn’t more worried—he’d sent:  _ If they’re so focused on us being “bros,” that means they’re not even entertaining the concept that we’re dating. Which means we have all the time in the world to take this at our own pace, so long as we’re careful _ .

Steve fell asleep that night with the pictures swirling in his head. He couldn’t decide how to really feel about the whole thing, so he settled on pretending it wasn’t happening.

He dropped Peggy and Angie at the airport the next day on his way to the ballpark, and Peggy kissed him on the cheek before they headed out, a knowing smile on her face. “You’re gonna be fine,” she said softly, and he just nodded at her, wondering how she was so sure.

As soon as he walked into the clubhouse, he found Bucky waiting right inside the door, chewing on his cuticles. “Don’t do that,” Steve said on reflex, reaching out to pull Bucky’s hands away from his mouth. 

Bucky rolled his eyes (but smiled) as he shook him off. “How are Peggy and Angie?” he asked.

“They’re good.” Steve cocked his head. “Are you waiting inside to avoid getting our picture taken?”

“Maybe.” Bucky looked down the hall. “I think we should go see Nat.”

Steve furrowed his brow at him. “Oh, you want to do this…now?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so, don’t you?” Bucky looked tense, but somehow not anxious. “After the whole ‘Brogers’ thing? I think she ought to know. I think it’s time.”

“Yeah, no, I agree.” Steve bobbed his head, trying to gather himself. They  _ wanted _ to do this. This was a good thing. “Let’s do it.”

“What the fuck are you two talking about?”

They both turned to see Nat watching them from her office door. Steve felt strangely caught out as Bucky very eloquently said, “Uhhh.”

“Come in here,” Natasha said, and vanished through the door.

They followed her silently, and Steve closed the door behind them as they entered.

“Is this about the two of you trending last night?” Nat shook her head as she sat behind her desk. “I’ve talked to the social media team, and they promised me they won’t utilize the sudden attention unless you two give them express permission. I can set up a sit-down between you guys and Karen later to discuss it—”

“It’s not about the ‘Brogers’ thing,” Steve said, the words bursting out of him.

“Oh?” Nat arched her brow. “Then what is it?”

Both of them immediately went mute. Nat looked between them, slightly frowning now.

Finally, Bucky, his face bright red like a tomato, said, “We’re uh. We’re dating.”

Both of Nat’s eyebrows went up, and her mouth fell very slightly open. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got nothing to add to this one, so I'll just see you guys next week!


	10. September

Steve and Bucky spent close to an hour in Nat’s office that afternoon, completely missing pregame practices. Nat wasn’t upset or anything, and in fact confided to them somewhere around the forty minute mark that she’d had somewhat of a feeling this might happen. But there was a lot to discuss—they were in utterly uncharted waters. 

Nat said she’d support them through whatever they wanted, but she’d prefer if they kept this on the down-low at least through to the off-season, if possible. Baseball news didn’t matter much once the season was over, and then they’d have a few months to wait for the news to cycle back off of them.

Just in case, they came up with a couple contingency plans, for worst-case scenario situations. And they also talked a lot about legal issues and fraternization rules that had literally never been in effect and a dozen other embarrassing things.

In the end, nothing ended up changing for the time being. They agreed that they should wait till the offseason to go public, although Bucky pointed out that going public at all was still up in the air. And Nat said that they could tell the team.

It was an awkward thing, because neither of them wanted to gather the whole team and make a big announcement, but there wasn’t much other way to do it. In the end, the two of them each told a couple people who in turn spread it around so the entire team was up to speed within about an hour.

Nobody cared, which Steve was immensely grateful for. They all kept quiet and tight-lipped, and acted like nothing had changed—although Sam and Tony did tease Steve about it quite a bit, in a good-natured sort of way.

And just like that, things were kind of back to normal. Steve and Bucky were still careful about showing affection in public, trying to keep their relationship secret from the newly rabid contingent of Dodgers fans on Twitter that pumped out ‘Brogers’ content on the daily. (Which was a source of incredible hilarity for Tony and the others.)

Time continued to pass. August slipped away, and September bloomed hot over New York. The baseball season was heading down the stretch now, and the postseason was looming large on the horizon. Playoff spots were getting more competitive, and every game meant something now. Wins and losses were important in a way they hadn’t been before. 

The Dodgers were still leading their division, but it was tight between them and the Toronto Blue Jays, who had edged out the Red Sox for second place sometime in late August. Sometime around mid-September, the Dodgers prepared to host the Blue Jays at Ebbets for a four-game series while leading the division by five games. With nine total games left to play, if the Dodgers swept the Jays, they’d clinch their division and their playoff spot. Conversely, if they lost more than half of the games, their lead would become incredibly shaky.

Everything else fell to the side as they readied to play for their postseason. Steve and Bucky stopped going over to each others' places, and the team stopped going out for drinks at night. If they weren't at the field, they were at home trying to rest up.

The Blue Jays arrived in Brooklyn as the Dodgers finished an ugly three game series against the Rays, who had won the last two games. Luckily, the Jays had also had their asses handed to them for the past two nights by the Red Sox, which meant the Dodgers hadn't slipped in the standings against the second place team. It  _ did _ mean that the Sox had gained some ground on both of them, which tightened the entire division up more than was comfortable.

Steve got to the park at six thirty the day of the first game against the Blue Jays, and he still wasn't early enough to beat Nat or Sam or Tony or Bucky, or a whole host of other players who clearly couldn't relax either. Bucky found him in the clubhouse and kissed him good morning, after they both made sure there were no cameras. "Wouldn't  _ that _ be a fun 'Brogers' hashtag," Bucky snorted when they pulled apart.

"It would certainly be an interesting change of pace," Steve said, shaking his head. "Want to catch for me?"

"Sure." Bucky led the way to the dugout, where he strapped on all of his gear so he could catch Steve's warm-up throws. As Steve rolled his shoulder and watched Bucky's eyes through the slits in his mask, he felt his shoulders relax and a sudden ease sweep over him. Confidence suffused him, and he knew then that they'd be fine.

As if he blinked, his next truly conscious moment that wasn't blurred or confused or full of heart-stopping anxiety was four days later, the night of their last game against the Jays.

They had won the last three games. The Jays were becoming desperate as their fighting chance to stay competitive in the division slipped away. If the Dodgers won tonight, they would clinch the division and their playoff berth. Steve was standing on the mound, staring at Bucky.

The noise in the stadium was deafening. Steve could feel his heartbeat in his eardrums. All he had to do was get one more out, and they were guaranteed a playoff spot. 

Bucky's eyes were deep and dark behind his mask, and Steve watched as he dropped into his crouch behind the batter. Something telepathic flashed between them—no need to talk, barely even a need to signal. They just understood each other: that they had to be careful because of the single batter on second, a result of a bad pitch by Steve, with their slim lead of just two runs. That Steve would have to throw faster rather than trickier to get by the guy standing next to Bucky, digging his cleats into the dirt.

Bucky signaled and Steve nodded. Bucky spread his feet, settling into his ankles to receive the impact of a fast pitch. Steve recognizes the stance immediately, would've been able to understand what pitch he was expecting without a sign. He adjusted his fingers and wound up, released his breath, and threw a killer fastball. 

It punched into Bucky's mitt before the Jays' batter swung, and even with his widely-planted feet, Bucky was knocked back by about an inch. He stood as the strike was called, with a grin that Steve could see in his eyes rather than on his face, and tossed the ball right back to Steve, easy as anything as the volume in the stadium ratcheted up just a bit more. 

They went through the same cycle a couple more times, and Steve could sense his teammates shifting behind him, tense and excited and ready to snap like rubber bands. He could see Nat in the dugout, her gaze boring into him, her hands clenched into tight fists on top of the dugout fence. He re-focused on Bucky as the umpire called the count at  _ 2-2 _ , on the unnatural calm in Bucky's stance that stood in sharp contrast to everybody else on the field. Steve didn't even look at the batter, the bat on his shoulder, ready to fight to the last pitch.

Bucky crouched again, called for another fastball, set his feet. Steve wound up and threw hard, right down the middle. He watched as the ball hit Bucky's glove with a loud  _ snap _ , too fast for the batter to even swing. The whole place was silent in that one moment, just the space between one heartbeat and the next. 

Then the umpire called  _ strike _ , and the game was over.

Bucky leaped to his feet and ripped his mask completely off, bounding toward Steve and shouting, knocking his helmet off so it rolled and bounced on the grass. Steve stood still, and maybe his hearing wasn't working, because he wasn't processing any noise at all.

Until Bucky crashed into him, warm and solid. He jumped into Steve's chest, and Steve instinctively caught him (one hand still gloved) around his waist as Bucky wrapped his legs around Steve's hips, yelling hoarsely.

The sound tuned back into Steve's ears like a plugged-in radio. The fans were screaming, there was music blaring, an announcer was shouting. Steve only had eyes for Bucky, who was looking down at him with shining eyes. For a brief, timeless moment, Steve forgot that their whole team was seconds away from engulfing them both in a wave of ecstatic players and coaches; forgot that they were being filmed for multiple sports networks; forgot that there were tens of thousands of people in the stands, and thought about kissing him.

Bucky's eyes widened when he read Steve's expression, and he opened his mouth, but before either of them could do or say anything, a wall of bodies slammed into them from behind Steve, and he stumbled, dropping Bucky back onto his feet.

The moment was immediately forgotten as they were swept up in the shouting and the jumping and the dizzying high of clinching their division. Steve lost track of who was next to him over the next hour or so—Tony tugged him in for a desperately tight hug, Sam slapped him painfully on the back, Thor swept him up bear-like and almost broke his back. Nat was in front of him at one point, patting his shoulder and saying something, but he couldn't hear her over his buzzing ears. 

The celebration moved into the clubhouse after only a few minutes, but didn't become less televised—if anything, there were definitely more cameras watching as the boys popped champagne and sprayed it all over each other and the walls and the floor, as they shotgunned beer and jumped into massive buckets of ice. It felt like they had earned this with all of those long-ass nights and days this summer, put in the blood and the sweat and the tears to reach this moment.

But, Steve reflected as the celebrating finally started to die down and the cameras slowly dwindled, this was just the beginning. Clinching a playoff spot was one thing; once they  _ reached _ the playoffs, they'd have to claw their way through each game. None of them would be satisfied with anything less than a World Series title, but it was a long and arduous fight to get that far.

When the last TV camera disappeared, Bucky caught Steve's arm and pulled him back toward the showers, wrinkling his nose. "You have so much champagne in your hair," he said. 

"I'll just take a shower at home," Steve protested, pulling back a bit.

Bucky rolled his eyes. "I know. I'm not bringing you back here to shower." And he wrapped his arms around Steve's neck and reeled him down to kiss him.

Steve sighed into him, all of his worries for the future of the season flying out of his head. He threaded his fingers into Bucky's hair, which (for all his complaints about  _ Steve's _ ) was sticky with beer and champagne. 

When they parted, Steve kept Bucky close. "I wanted to kiss you when we won," he said.

"I know." Bucky nodded, his expression thoughtful as he ran his fingers idly over the side of Steve's neck. "I could tell."

"I thought so." Steve swallowed. 

"I'm glad you didn't," Bucky said quietly. "I don't think that would've been the right moment."

"Yeah, no." Biting the inside of his cheek, Steve shook his head. 

"But…" Bucky glanced away, took a deep breath, then looked back. "I love you."

Steve's mouth opened slightly, and he stared down at Bucky, his brain clunking slowly through its comprehension process. Bucky held his gaze, looking at him with only a hint of anxiety in his furrowed eyebrows. "I love you too," Steve finally said, feeling dumb.

Bucky laughed softly and pulled Steve in for another searing kiss.

* * *

It didn't take long for the high of clinching a playoff berth to wear off. When the team reconvened at the park the next day for their first game as division winners, Nat met them with a hard expression and a bubble-popping speech. "This is the first and easiest hurdle," she said to them, her arms crossed. "Once September ends, we're going to be met by three teams in rapid succession who want this just as much and who are just as talented as us. And that's assuming we made it through each round."

The message was obvious: don't get complacent. Don't get lazy. Keep your head down. One day at a time. 

Despite this, Steve couldn't help feeling warmth in his chest, like a nest of coals. Whenever he caught Bucky's eye all day, all he could hear in his head was "I love you." That wouldn't wear off nearly as fast as the win last night, he thought.

The team's next task, before playoffs, was to win as many games down the stretch as they could. They more they won, the better shot they had at home field advantage in the playoffs. They started that night with a decisive win over the Orioles, who barely even put up a fight. 

Even Nat couldn't fully dissuade the team from continuing the celebratory mood, so a lot of the team decided to hit the bars in small groups that night. Steve and Bucky ended up with a squad of pitchers, Luke and Luis and Gabe and Miles and both Peters, out at one of their favorite bars a couple blocks from Ebbets. 

The group congregated in a corner, away from the rest of the patrons but not to the point where they seemed isolationist. Steve, with his arm around Bucky's shoulders, took up an involved discussion (argument) with the Peters about whether knuckleballers were still relevant in the game today. He could vaguely hear Bucky talking with Gabe and Luis about the amount of sign changes they'd need to implement over the course of the playoffs.

Steve and Bucky, twenty minutes later, volunteered to pick up the next round and extricated themselves from the group. Steve kept his arm around Bucky as they ambled up to the bar.

They were waiting for the bartender to notice them (they were in no hurry) when Steve's attention was caught by the TV above the bar, showing a sports news channel. Steve narrowed his eyes at the screen, trying to figure out what had piqued his interest. Then he noticed a familiar spinning purple Hydras logo, and he nudged Bucky to get him to watch too.

There was no sound, but it was clear that the anchors were discussing the Hydras' playoff chances. Their former team was leading their division by a tight two games, but there were only four left in the regular season now, and all they had to do was hold onto that lead. Steve watched Bucky's expression out of the corner of his eye; he couldn't fathom what they would do if they had to play the Hydras in the playoffs. 

The program cut away from normal anchor discussion and to an interview-style segment, and suddenly Brock Rumlow's face was on the screen. 

Steve looked at Bucky, whose expression had gone sour. His frown only got deeper when he jerkily turned away from the TV to find Steve staring at him. "What?" he snapped.

"D'you think maybe…" Steve trailed off as the bartender finally turned to them and Bucky (his demeanor sliding briefly back into a bright and cordial one) ordered eight beers for the group. But when the barkeep turned back, Steve continued, "D'you think we should maybe tell Nat about...the whole Hydras thing?"

"No." Bucky pressed his palms flat to the sticky bar surface. "I don't."

"It's your choice, but—"

"But nothing." He didn't look at Steve. "It  _ is _ my choice. And I say that I don't want to tell Nat."

"What if we have to play the Hydras in the World Series? You don't think that'll be a problem?"

"Then we'll cross that bridge when we get there." Bucky's tone was rarely so flat, so toneless. It was completely shutting down any of Steve's normal footholds in the conversation. 

"I think that's a little short-sighted," Steve said carefully.

"I don't really care what you think about it." Bucky scooped up the tray of beers when the bartender put it down and went back to the table without another word.

Steve watched him go, stung. He stayed at the bar and watched his beer go undrunk as Bucky rejoined the group conversation. Steve could tell, even from this distance and despite his obvious attempts to conceal it, that Bucky was rattled. 

Shaking his head, Steve stayed back at the bar until the group broke up for the night, and wished Bucky a very stiff goodnight, at which point they went their separate ways for the night.

* * *

Bucky apologized the next morning in the clubhouse. Steve just stayed quiet. He knew better than to tell Bucky what to do, but he still didn't think this was a good choice. He wasn't going to say anything, though.

Today was their last home game of the regular season, and then they were going to get on a plane to LA. They had to play the LA Angels for the last two games of the season, a scheduling anomaly that seriously made Steve wonder if the people who planned the baseball season had any brain cells at all.

The first Angels game was an afternoon game, too, which meant the whole Dodgers team was bleary-eyed as they played that day. But they won, adding another to the pile as they attempted to scrape home field advantage.

Afterward, the team was too tired to really do anything, but it was only late afternoon here in California (even if it felt like it was dinnertime) so it was too early to go to bed. So Steve suggested that he and Bucky go for a walk, just around the hotel, to enjoy the late September weather.

They were careful not to walk hand-in-hand, but Steve couldn't help brushing up against Bucky sometimes, nudging him to point out something he found interesting. He was trying not to think about the fact that their last game of the regular season was tomorrow, and after that, they'd only have a week until playoffs started. The thought of it made the bottom of his stomach drop out.

The two of them were rounding a corner when it happened. Steve's shoulder was grazing Bucky's, and Bucky was laughing at something stupid that Steve had said. There was a blur of movement, and Steve saw a familiar shape, but his brain couldn't fathom what it was.

It formed into Brock Rumlow, who was standing just a few inches in front of them, grinning. "Hey, Barnes," he said, his voice sounding tinny in Steve's ears. "Snitched lately?"

For a moment, none of them moved. Then they all moved at once—Steve toward Rumlow, Bucky toward Steve like he was trying to hold him back, and Rumlow around Steve, arms out. One hand caught Bucky's shoulder, and Rumlow shoved him. Later, Steve thought it was an attempt to simply separate Bucky from him, not an outright malicious action, but at the time, all he knew was that Bucky was caught completely off-balance. He stumbled, his arms pinwheeling as he fell backward, and his momentum was halted by a lamp post, which the back of his head slammed into with an alarming  _ clang _ that reverberated over the whole street. 

Steve's vision narrowed, and he grabbed Rumlow by the shoulder, spun him around, and punched him in the face. 

Rumlow staggered back, in Bucky's direction. He glanced at Steve, clearly scared of him—he obviously hadn't counted on Steve being there. But he still leaned in and whispered something to Bucky, who was crumpled on the sidewalk, looking dazed.

Steve strode up to them, but Rumlow was already scampering away. 

Hands shaking with adrenaline and rage, Steve dropped to one knee so he was face-to-face with Bucky. "You okay?" he asked.

Bucky looked at him, but his eyes had a hard time focusing. "I think so," he said. 

"Let's get back to the hotel," Steve said. He kissed Bucky lightly on the forehead, then took his hand and helped him to his feet. Navigating around the gawking onlookers, he kept one arm around Bucky's waist as they walked back.

It wasn't until he walked through the hotel's front doors that he realized something had changed. 

Nat met them at the doors and pushed them straight toward the elevators as a horde of people with cameras descended on them, yelling things that Steve couldn't parse: he was catching things like "Rumlow" and "gay" but those words didn't make sense together, so he just kept walking, pulling Bucky with him until the elevator doors closed between them and the reporters.

"What's happening?" he asked.

Nat rolled her eyes and kept her nose buried in her phone. "You'll see. We'll deal with it tomorrow, anyway. It's not a right-now problem." She looked up and nodded at Bucky. "Is he okay?"

Steve turned to look at him. Bucky's eyes were unfocused, and he was staring at the closed elevator doors with a tilted head and a vacant expression. "I don't know," he said truthfully. "He hit his head pretty hard...on a lamp post…"

"I know." Nat shook her head. "Claire says you have to keep him awake all night, okay? As a precaution, in case of concussion. She won't be able to come check him out till morning so it's on you."

"What the fuck is going on?" Steve asked. His adrenaline was draining, and he was quickly realizing that there was a  _ lot _ he was missing.

The elevator doors opened with a ding. "Turn on your TV once you get settled and you'll see," Nat said. "I have to make some calls, I gotta do damage control, I can't hold your hand all night. But I'll call you once things calm down a bit—probably around midnight."

"Okay," Steve said dumbly. He supported Bucky out of the elevator as Nat held the door back for them. 

"Neither of you are playing tomorrow, so plan to stay sequestered. And I mean  _ sequestered _ , okay, so not even room service. Sam's gonna bring you guys food every once in awhile, he's already fully apprised."

"We're not," Steve insisted.

"You will be," Nat said impatiently. "Don't forget to keep Bucky awake, okay?"

"Fine." Steve turned away from her, and he heard the elevator doors close. 

Bucky stirred as Steve opened his hotel room door and looked around when it closed behind them. "What's happening?" he asked, his face etched with confusion.

"I have no idea," Steve said truthfully. He'd only fully understood a few things that Nat had told him: Bucky had to stay awake all night, they were staying sequestered until further notice, and neither of them were playing the next day. "C'mon, let's get you some ice." He sat Bucky down on one of the beds and dug some ice out of one of the buckets he'd shoved into the mini-fridge's freezer. He dumped some of it into a towel and snagged the TV remote on his way back to Bucky. 

He pressed the bundle of ice to the back of Bucky's head, trying to find the exact spot where he'd smashed into the lamp pole. He knew he found it when Bucky flinched, and he kept the ice there. "This okay?" he asked.

Bucky nodded, then winced.

"Don't move your head," Steve said helpfully. Then, feeling that if he was in the dark any longer he'd lose his mind, he turned on the TV and surfed until he found sports news.

Immediately, he saw what had gone wrong. Someone (probably multiple someones) had recorded the incident with Rumlow. 

The two of them watched as talking head sports anchors dissected a video that included Rumlow pushing Bucky, Steve punching Rumlow in the face...and Steve kissing Bucky's forehead.

"Shit," Steve said softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anything in here that's confusing (specifically playoffs / clinching a division) is addressed in the glossary, but let me know if you have any extra questions! We're comin' up on the end here, so I'll see ya next week!


	11. The Commissioner

Steve and Bucky watched in horror as the sports news reporters discussed whether they were really dating, how the team and everybody would react, whether they'd be allowed to keep playing baseball. They also spent a decent amount of time debating whether Rumlow had attacked Bucky because of homophobia or something else.

Steve swallowed and muted the TV as they circled back to that issue for the third time, and turned to look at Bucky. His eyes had started to get more focus back in them, and he seemed much more lucid, judging by the look of impending doom on his face. "What did Rumlow say to you?" Steve asked, deciding to steer clear of the most pressing issue for now.

"'See you in the World Series'," Bucky recited immediately. "That's it." He cleared his throat. "I guess the Hydras clinched their division today, that's why."

"Oh." Steve realized that the ice he was holding to Bucky's head had started melting, so he got up to replace it. "That was...extreme. Like, if he wanted to garner attention, he sure chose the right way to do it."

"I don't think he meant to push me that hard," Bucky said matter-of-factly. "Even when I was on the team, shit like that wasn't really intentional. I think he got spooked because he didn't expect you to be there, and reacted...like that."

"Still extreme," Steve muttered.

Steve's phone rang a few times with calls from Peggy. He ignored them. Bucky's buzzed as well—Becca. He didn't pick it up either. Steve did, however, open Twitter for a few minutes, in which he got a first-hand view of the incredible amount of vitriol being spewed at them by fans and internet trolls alike. He also noticed that "Brogers" was in fact trending again, this time nationwide. When he saw that, he closed the app.

As promised, Nat called Steve at about midnight. Bucky was much more clear-eyed by then, and they had been watching the (muted) sports channel for hours and hours. Sam had swung by once with a ton of food for them, but wisely made his exit very quickly when he saw their faces.

Steve picked up as soon as he saw Nat's contact on the screen. "Hello," he said quietly.

"So I guess by now you've figured it out," she said. "Well, I've spent the last few hours playing damage control."

"I know," Steve said, gesturing vaguely at the TV. "We've seen you on-screen a couple times."

"Hm." She paused. "Is Bucky okay?"

Steve glanced at him. He was holding his own ice now, and his eyelids were drooping a bit. But he had known without Steve having to point it out that he had to stay awake, so he was making a valiant effort not to yawn. "He's all right," Steve said finally, at which point Bucky turned sharply to look at him, knowing he was being talked about. "We're settling in for a long night."

"Well, maybe turn off the TV," Nat said gently. "Nothing new is gonna come from there, at least not tonight."

"What's the plan, Nat?" Steve asked, rubbing his forehead. He felt horrible. The original plan of waiting till the off-season had been blown completely out of the water. He couldn't have chosen a worse time to have this happen, right before playoffs—and it really was  _ his _ fault. He'd just been so worried about Bucky and he'd forgotten where they were and that there were people around them and he'd fallen into private habits…

"We'll deal with this," Nat said, which sort of sounded like  _ I don't know yet _ . "You and Bucky are gonna stay out of reach of the press until we're back home in two days. Then the three of us and Karen are gonna have a nice little sit-down and hash it out. The commissioner will probably also be involved."

"Sitwell?"

"Yeah, what other commissioner is there?" Nat snorted, which made Steve feel loads better. Her sense of humor was undamped. "There's not much else to report right now. I've put out multiple statements saying that the Dodgers organization fully supports you two in every capacity, and that we expect the Commission to fully investigate Rumlow's actions, and that's it. I'll call you tomorrow morning with another update."

"Okay. Thanks." Steve hung up. Then he stood there, unsure of what to do.

Bucky noticed and waved at Steve with ice-free hand to sit back down next to him on the bed, and Steve complied, sighing as he leaned his head on Bucky's shoulder. "What the fuck are we gonna do?" Steve asked.

"We'll figure it out," Bucky said, watching the muted TV with his arm wrapped loosely around Steve's shoulders. "It's gonna be fine." But he sounded uncertain.

* * *

Eventually, Bucky was the one who turned off the TV, citing his sore head. They were both exhausted, and around 3 a.m., Bucky closed his eyes for a few minutes before Steve noticed and shook him back awake. 

Finally, the sun rose and found the two of them sitting side-by-side on the floor, propped in uncomfortable positions to keep from dozing off. Steve's phone was dead, and Bucky's had been turned off since midnight. Sam was going to show up soon with breakfast, Steve assumed, so he pushed himself up from the floor and splashed some water on his face. Bucky followed him, wincing at the bright light in the bathroom. They'd started forgoing the ice after awhile, once the swelling had gone down, but it was clear that his head still hurt.

A knock on the door startled them both, and Steve left Bucky in the bathroom to go answer it, fully expecting Sam with food. Instead, Claire swept into the room, shutting the door behind her and tossing her bag onto one of the beds. "Bucky? C'mere," she said, her voice relatively quiet. 

He came out, looking contrite for some reason. "Good morning," he said.

"Good morning yourself," Claire snorted, taking out a pen-light. "I assume neither of you slept?"

Steve nodded, leaning against one of the dressers. "Nat told us—"

"She misinterpreted me." Claire gently wrapped her hand around the back of Bucky's head, shining the light into his eyes one at a time. Bucky squinted, and his pupils contracted sharply. Claire nodded and continued, "I told her that you should stay awake  _ if _ , and  _ only if _ , you couldn't walk in a straight line, or your pupils stayed dilated, or other similar issues."

"Oh," Bucky said, making a face. "That would've been nice to know. I'm fucking tired."

"Well, I was afraid that kind of miscommunication would happen," Claire said, shaking her head. "But it is what it is. You're not playing today, so you can catch up on sleep."

"And that's for sure safe?" Steve asked as Claire had Bucky follow the moving pen-light with just his eyes. 

"Yes." Claire flicked the light off and sat Bucky down, circling around him to prod at the welt on the back of his head. "Most of the time, not sleeping with a concussion is simply a precaution to make sure you can notice if other symptoms develop, or it's because you're not functioning normally. But Bucky, you've been carrying on a conversation, and I assume you've been walking fine. And your eyes are doing what they're supposed to do."

"Well, that's reassuring," Bucky said dryly, grimacing when Claire was a bit too rough with his head. 

"It should be." Claire let go of him and stripped off her gloves. "You're gonna be fine. I'm sure you have a mild concussion, but it's nothing to be too concerned about. When we get back to New York, I'm gonna want you to come in and do the concussion test against your baseline, just to be sure. But for now, just get a lot of rest and keep icing your head whenever it hurts."

"Okay." Bucky kept looking at his hands, folded in his lap. "Thanks, Claire."

She looked between them, and her expression softened. "Everything's gonna be fine," she said. "Don't worry—Nat's got it totally under control."

They both nodded, but didn't say anything. 

Claire sighed and patted Bucky's shoulder before heading back to the door. "I'll see you in New York," she said, her hand on the door handle. "Keep your heads up, okay?"

"Okay," Bucky said lowly.

The door snapped closed behind her, and they were left in silence again. Steve stayed where he was, watching Bucky where he sat on the bed, looking small and forlorn. "She's right," he said. "Everything's gonna be all right."

"There's no way to know that," Bucky said, finally looking up. "We're being absolutely  _ smeared _ by everybody, left and right. We've been trapped in this room all night. This shit is bigger than both of us, and it blew up because of two seconds of video where  _ you _ couldn't—"

"I'm sorry, you think this is  _ my _ fault?" Steve interrupted, defensive and stung. He  _ knew _ it was his fault, but he didn't need Bucky pointing that out.

Bucky threw his arms out at his sides. "You  _ kissed _ me in  _ public _ , days after we literally had an  _ explicit _ conversation about how now is not the time!" 

"That was about being on the field after a game," Steve snapped. "And you didn't seem to have any objections at the time!"

"I barely even noticed at the time! In case you don't remember, I had just been attacked by the man who once made my life  _ hell _ , and I wasn't really paying attention to our surroundings. That was  _ your _ job."

"This is not productive," Steve said, tamping down the anger and frustration that were building like a tsunami in his ribcage. "It's not me you're really mad at."

Miraculously, that worked—Bucky deflated, and the furious light went out of his eyes. "You're right," he said. "I'm just...I'm just scared."

Emotion welled up in Steve's throat, and he crossed to Bucky, wrapping his arms around him and tucking Bucky's head into his chest. "I know," he said as Bucky melted into him, his shoulders dropping. "I'm scared too. But…" He trailed off, trying to gather his thoughts. "I love you, and no matter what happens, I'm choosing you. If everything else goes to shit, I'm choosing you."

Bucky looked up at him thoughtfully. "I love you too," he said simply, and dragged Steve down to kiss him. 

They curled up on one of the beds and fell dead asleep. 

* * *

Steve woke up to somebody pounding on the door. For a moment, he was completely disoriented—the light coming through the window had a thick, late afternoon quality, and Bucky was hot and solid, half on top of him. Then the loud knocking came again, and he gently pushed Bucky off of him and stumbled over to the door.

He opened it to find Nat, her eyebrows pinched together. "Oh good, you're alive," she said, shoving past him into the room. She turned and saw Bucky stirring on the bed and added, "Both of you."

"What's going on?" Steve asked, knuckling sleep out of one eye.

"We're going home. Pack up." She perched on the dresser and pulled out her phone. "I'm here to supervise, because neither of you were answering your phones all fucking day so I don't trust you to function properly right now."

"Gee, thanks." Steve dutifully packed up all his stuff, which admittedly only took a few seconds, because he hadn't exactly brought that much. Bucky followed suit, finishing by fishing his phone out of a drawer and turning it on. Steve pulled his out and looked at the dead screen—he'd have to charge it on the plane.

"Now, Claire tells me that you're probably fine but she wants you to do a concussion test when we get back," Nat said to Bucky. "That works, the three of us are meeting Karen at the clubhouse as soon as we get back. We'll be video conferencing the commissioner as well. So once that meeting is over, you can go do whatever test she needs from you. Two birds, one stone."

"Sounds delightful," Bucky groused. "Are we heading out right now?"

"Yes." Nat led the way to the door. "Let's go."

The plane ride home was exceedingly awkward. None of their teammates seemed to know how to address what had happened, so they seemed to have opted to pretend it hadn't—except for overly sympathetic glances and hushed conversations just out of earshot.

Steve just leaned his head back and tried not to think about it.

As soon as they landed and the bus parked at Ebbets, Nat ushered the two of them into the clubhouse and into her office. Karen joined them a few minutes later, carrying an iPad. "Mr. Sitwell will be ready in about ten minutes," she told Nat, sitting in the last empty chair.

"Okay." Nat turned to look at Bucky and Steve. "I know neither of you have really been plugged in today, so I'll give you a rundown. People are still kind of losing their shit about the whole gay baseball players thing, but none of it's truly gonna affect you—as we discussed, there are no rules against it and you're totally fine. You're just gonna have some heightened attention on you for a little while."

"You're also making history," Karen said, her eyes shining. Steve stared at her, unsure why she was so excited. "You are  _ the _ first openly gay Major League baseball players, not to mention the first players who are dating each other."

"Yeah, it's real exciting," Bucky said sarcastically. "I'm really looking forward to seeing all of the online backlash from people who don't think it's natural for gay people to play sports. Or exist."

"Actually…a lot of the response has been positive," Nat said, shrugging when Steve and Bucky's eyes widened. "I mean, there's obviously a lot of morons out there, and some of them are sports reporters, but it's 2020. There are a lot of perfectly normal people who either don't give a shit or are excited."

"Well...that's nice I guess," Steve said quietly. 

"Anyway, we'll deal with those hits as they come." Nat settled more firmly against her desk. "The whole team has been briefed on the correct things to say when asked: 'no comment,' 'we support all of our teammates,' shit like that. Plus none of them are douchebags so they definitely aren't gonna be like dumbass homophobes about it, as we know."

Steve and Bucky nodded in unison.

"Besides that, we're just gonna keep our heads down and focus on the season for now. Once we're through playoffs, it might be nice for you guys to do an interview and just get your story out there a bit." Her eyes softened a little. "You're...role models, y'know? Trailblazers. Kids are gonna be looking up to you now."

Steve felt a little dizzy, and he gripped the arm of his chair to keep from swaying.

Nat noticed, and cleared her throat. "Anyway. That's later. For now, we're all set on that front. Just ignore the press, okay? I won't put you in front of any cameras from now till the end of playoffs. The much more pressing issue is Brock Rumlow." Nat fixed Bucky with a shrewd look. "Would you care to explain to me what that was about?"

Bucky glanced at Steve, who just shrugged. He had known they were going to end up here at some point. And with a heavy sigh, Bucky said, "Rumlow's the one who broke my shoulder before you guys picked me up. And he's the one who blacked my eye earlier this season."

Nat made a soft noise. "Are you saying—"

"I'm saying that he's a psycho," Bucky said flatly. "I don't know why he did that in LA. Steve and I think that he thought he'd find me alone, and he panicked when he didn't."

"Why did he come to find you in the first place?"

Bucky hesitated. "The Hydras are juicing," he said heavily. 

Nat's eyebrows rose. "Excuse me?"

Finally,  _ finally _ , Bucky explained everything to Natasha. Told her everything about the Hydras, and Rumlow, and the other players out there. Nat listened quietly, her eyes wide, and when he was done, said, "Holy  _ shit _ . We have to tell the commissioner immediately."

Bucky winced. "I dunno if he'll be receptive—"

Before he could finish, the iPad in Karen's lap started ringing. She scrambled to put it up on the desk and traded places with Nat so she'd be on screen. Then she accepted the Facetime call, and Jasper Sitwell's face was on the screen.

Immediately, Steve remembered why he didn't like Sitwell. He had a weaselly look to him, and he had a tendency to be inconsistent with the punishments he handed down to players and teams. It gave Steve the impression that he played favorites.

Now, he said, "Hello, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Barnes. First, let me say how sorry I am that these events transpired this way. You must be very stressed."

Steve made a noncommittal noise, and Bucky just looked at his knees.

Nat cleared her throat and leaned forward. "I know we've been emailing, but I thought face-to-face would be helpful," she said.

Sitwell looked at her and nodded. "Right you are, Ms. Romanoff."

"And in my emails, I told you that the Dodgers organization has the private element of these events under our control," she said, her voice tight. "My players' relationship is not the concern of the Commission, aside from what I can only hope will be your explicit and verbal support of them in any statements and should any media ask you about them."

Sitwell inclined his head. "Yes, of course." He paused. "If this is under control, then what do you need me for?"

Nat's brows furrowed. "The issue about the Hydras player," she said slowly. "Brock Rumlow attacked my players in broad daylight."

"Ah, yes. That." Sitwell shifted in place and adjusted his glasses. "I have examined the footage and it seems to me that Mr. Rumlow was not the only player to attack somebody in the street that day." He glanced at Steve.

"I was defending myself and Bucky," Steve blurted. "I didn't—"

Nat reached over, under the eyeshot of the iPad's camera, and batted at Steve's knee until he shut up. "I think we can all agree that it was self-defense," she said.

"I can't punish Mr. Rumlow and not punish Mr. Rogers," Sitwell said, shrugging. "That would be tantamount to declaring a team that I'd prefer win the World Series."

"Would it?" Nat tilted her head to the side.

"My decision is final," Sitwell said. "I will not punish Mr. Rumlow, but nor will I punish Mr. Rogers." He smiled at Steve, but it didn't reach his eyes. "All's well that ends well."

Nat's mouth was slightly open. "It's more complicated than that," she said resolutely, and Steve saw out of the corner of his eye that Bucky closed his eyes and shook his head, just slightly.

Sitwell listened politely, with a forced bland expression on his face, as Nat launched into a rehashing of Bucky's experience with the Hydras. Occasionally, she glanced at Bucky as if expecting him to pitch in, but Bucky refused to look at her. 

Finally, when she was finished, Sitwell sat up straighter and said, "That is a very interesting story," and Steve knew then that it was over. 

"Story?" Nat sounded incredulous.

"Yes, story," Sitwell said, his voice gaining a sharper edge. "Because unfortunately, although I have no doubt that Mr. Barnes is nothing but truthful, his is the only evidence that what you are telling me is factual."

"You could ask other people," Steve said, unable to help himself. "Conduct a full investigation—"

"I could indeed, Mr. Rogers," Sitwell said, cutting cleanly across him. "But unfortunately, you also need evidence to  _ open _ an investigation, and I don't have that." He looked off to the side, distracted by someone off-camera. "Now I'm afraid I have to go. Good luck in the playoffs next week."

The screen went black.

Nat stared, open-mouthed at her own reflection in the dark screen.

Bucky sighed heavily. "I could've told you he would say that," he said quietly. "He and Alexander Pierce are old friends, and Sitwell's nomination to be Commissioner was  _ heavily _ backed by Arnim Zola." The high-powered head owner of the LA Hydras.

"That would've been nice to know," Nat said, sitting back in her seat.

"Well, I tried to tell you not to say anything," Bucky said sharply. "But I was interrupted."

"It is what it is," Nat said with a sigh. "Sitwell's contract as Commissioner is up this winter, and he's nobody's favorite—except the Hydras' ownership. I can easily convince Pepper to help spearhead a campaign to vote him out."

Pepper Potts, the Dodgers' owner. (Steve had a secret bet going with Sam that she and Tony were sleeping together.) "Who would you tell her to replace him with?" Steve asked. 

Karen piped up from behind the desk. "Maybe Carol Danvers," she said. "She's been around for ages and there's enough female owners these days to finally get a woman Commissioner in there, I think. She's popular with both players and owners, it would work out pretty well."

Nat hummed. "Maybe. I'll talk to Fury and Pepper about it."

"None of that matters right now," Bucky said, throwing his arms up. "Whether Sitwell stays or goes, whether he's replaced with a woman or not—it doesn't  _ matter _ ."

"Yes it does," Nat said, nonplussed. "If we get a new Commissioner in there, they can open up an investigation into the Hydras—"

"Okay, fine, it matters. It's great for  _ after _ this season is over," Bucky said, enunciating every word. "But  _ right now _ , we have to deal with the fact that the most heavily juiced team in the Majors is in the playoffs with us and has the best chance of being our competition in the World Series, if we make it that far." He paused and looked at Steve. "And Sitwell will tell Pierce about this conversation, and he'll tell the team. And they'll know that I didn't keep my mouth shut."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun and exciting stuff. Everything in this chapter about concussions is true as far as I know! If there's any confusion on the role of the Commission or the commissioner himself, drop a comment. See y'all next week!


	12. Lull

Steve stayed in the clubhouse while Bucky went with Claire to do his concussion test, but Nat kicked him out of her office so she could have an emergency phone call with Nick Fury and Pepper Potts. Karen cast him a sympathetic look as she headed out for the night, her work done for now.

Bucky came out of Claire's office, his expression unchanged from earlier. But Claire followed him with a smile. "He's fine," she said to Steve, rubbing Bucky's shoulder warmly. "You guys just take it easy till playoffs start and everything should be all right."

"Thanks, Claire," Bucky said, and Steve nodded at her. She waved as they walked out.

Steve drove them to his apartment, and Bucky didn't question it. It wasn't until they were inside, with the door safely closed, that he spun in place and wrapped his arms tightly around Steve, sinking into his chest. Steve sighed and held him close, swaying them back and forth slightly. "It's okay," he murmured softly. "It's just been...an insane twenty-four hours."

"You can say that again," Bucky said, with an odd gulping chuckle that was muffled in Steve's shoulder. 

"It'll die down a little now," Steve said. "The Rumlow thing will fade once it's clear Sitwell's gonna sit on his hands, and then focus will turn back to the playoffs. And you heard Nat, once we get a new Commissioner, the Hydras will get what's coming for them. We just gotta be patient."

"What about  _ us _ ?" Bucky asked, leaning back to fix Steve with his slightly watery gaze. "That story is  _ not _ gonna fade."

"No, but Nat's got our backs." Steve walked them over to the kitchen and sat Bucky at the counter, then crossed to the fridge and pulled out of a carton of eggs. "We've done nothing wrong. I'm not ashamed, are you?"

Bucky shook his head emphatically, then winced when it jostled his skull. "No, of course not," he said, pressing a thumb to one of his temples to alleviate the discomfort.

"Then we'll deal with it. Answer their good questions, tell them they're being douchebags when they are, and trust Nat to help us handle everything as it comes."

Bucky nodded, slowly so he didn't hurt himself. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess you're right."

Steve smiled at him. "Now, how do you want your eggs?"

"Scrambled, please," Bucky said, leaning across the counter with a groan. "I'm  _ starvin' _ ."

They ate and then immediately went to bed—sleeping most of the day hadn't made up for the fact that they hadn't slept at all the night before. 

When they finally got up the next day, Steve's phone was fully charged after he'd plugged it in the night before, and the screen was covered in phone notifications of missed calls from Peggy. Groaning, Steve opened the screen and saw that she had tried to call him twelve times before his phone died the night after the LA incident, and fifteen more since it had turned back on sometime last night.

Leaving Bucky sleeping in his bed, Steve gently closed the door to block the noise and tapped on one of the missed call notifications, calling her back. He walked into the kitchen and put a mug under the Keurig as it rang in his ear, and she picked up before the second ring. "Steven Rogers," she said, her tone dangerous and low. "How  _ dare _ you ignore me for so long?"

"I wasn't ignoring you," Steve said, which was only half true. He had absolutely intentionally ignored Peggy's calls back in the hotel room. "My phone died.'

"Oh, I'm well aware," Peggy said. "That's when it stopped ringing all together."

"That  _ is _ how it works," Steve agreed.

"Don't sass me," she snapped. "I've been worried sick about you."

"I'm fine," he said gently. "Really. I'm okay."

"And Bucky's all right?" she asked, her tone suddenly shifting to one of deepest concern, which was of course the true source of her anger with him.

"Yeah, he's fine." Steve glanced toward his closed bedroom door as the Keurig spat out his coffee. "He doesn't have a bad concussion, thank God."

"That wasn't really what I meant, but I'm glad to hear that," Peggy said. "How are you with all this...stuff?"

Steve shrugged, even though she couldn't see it. "It's...weird. Scary. But it's gonna be okay."  
"Glad to hear it." Peggy paused, seeming to wait for him to keep talking, then let out an explosive sigh. "I assume you're going to explain to me what all of that was about."

Steve took a sip of coffee and launched into an abbreviated explanation of the Hydras and Bucky's history with Rumlow and everything else. He was getting rather sick of both hearing and telling the story, this being the third time it needed to be recounted to an outsider in the last day. But Peggy listened attentively, and when he was finished telling her what Sitwell had said, she said sharply, "What an absolute wanker."

"Indeed," Steve said, grinning in spite of himself. She'd been worried about him, he knew, and he felt bad for not talking to her at first. He was surprised by how good it felt to have her looped in.

"Well, I just figured you should know that the court of public opinion is in your favor," Peggy said carefully. 

"Oh?" Steve's voice was measured. He hadn't intended to think about this at all today. His plan, in fact, had been to turn off his phone as soon as he and Peggy were done talking, go back into the room with Bucky and—

"Yes," Peggy said, interrupting his thoughts. "You're still trending, and it's very positive, for the most part, and all of the news articles are talking about you and Bucky being 'pioneers' and 'role models' and 'trailblazers.'"

"Sounds pretty good." Steve traced the edge of his countertop with one finger.

"What's wrong, Steve?"

Of course she could read him that well, just from his voice. Or maybe he was just incredibly obvious. "I just...I didn't want to be any of that," he said, his voice small. "We didn't ask for all this. It should just be me and Bucky."

"It should," Peggy said. She sounded heartbreakingly gentle. "But you two are becoming more than that. And that's okay."

"Yeah, I guess." The sound of a door opening made him look up, and he saw Bucky poking a bleary head out of the bedroom door, squinting against the sunlight. "I gotta go. Breakfast and stuff."

"Take care, dear. And keep me updated, please."

"Will do." He hung up and immediately turned his phone back off. "Hey, Buck. Good morning."

"Good morning," Bucky said, his voice still low and sleep-rough. "Talking to Peggy?"

"Yeah, I just...figured it was time to loop her in." Steve drummed his fingers on the counter. "How are you doing?"

"Just woke up. Haven't thought about it yet." Bucky came over to the kitchen and folded himself into Steve's chest, sighing when Steve wrapped his arms around him to pull him in tighter. 

"What do you want to do today?" Steve asked, muffled as his face was pressed into Bucky's hair.

"Just  _ chill _ ," Bucky said fervently. "No news. No screens. Just us, here."

"Read my mind." Steve kissed the top of his head and gently extricated himself. "Want some coffee?"

"Yes, please." Bucky sat and rubbed his eyes. "Also, Becca's coming tomorrow. If that's okay. I texted her when I woke up."

Steve tilted his head. "Okay. Strange circumstances for me to meet your sister, but that works for me."

"She already…" Bucky trailed off, his eyebrows low and tight. "We've discussed everything, and we're okay, so it won't get too heavy. She just wants to meet you, and I haven't seen her since the All-Star Break, and all that."

"Hey. It's good." Steve smiled and gave Bucky his coffee. "Really. I'm excited to meet her."

The corner of Bucky's mouth curled up. "Good, I'm glad." He was quiet for a moment, then he said, "I just had a really weird idea."

"Okay. Shoot."

"What if we did like...a real date?"

Steve fixed him with a tense stare. "I'm not sure now's the best time," he said slowly.

"Not like  _ out _ , just like—here?" Bucky gestured around the apartment. "D'you have candles and wine and shit?"

"Yes," Steve said, wondering if his boyfriend had truly lost his mind. 

"Then we can just set up some rip-off of a fancy-ass dinner, with like  _ spaghetti _ . It'd be kinda nice, right?" Bucky's eyes were bright as he looked at Steve. Excited.

They needed this, Steve decided suddenly. Something silly and a little stupid and very, very cute. "Yeah," he said, nodding. "Yeah, that sounds really fun."

Bucky's face broke into a grin, and the anxiety knot that had been living in Steve's gut for the past day or so very slightly loosened.

Once evening rolled around, the date plan was derailed ever so slightly by sex, but eventually, they got back on track. Steve dug out some candles Peggy had gotten him for his birthday a few years back and laid them out on the table on top of a decent tablecloth he dug out of a closet. Bucky banished him from the kitchen and set to work boiling an egregious amount of spaghetti. 

Steve let Bucky do his thing and hunted until he found a bottle of red wine, which he decided was also probably a remnant of Peggy's influence. He put it on the table and fiddled with it, trying to figure out what he thought was missing. "Should we get dressed up or something?" he asked.

Bucky looked at him over his shoulder, stirring the pasta. "Nah, I don't think so. Let's only drag the charade out so far."

"It's not a charade," Steve protested. "It's a real date."

Bucky laughed. "Yeah, okay, true. No dressing up still."

"Deal." Steve hovered at the edge of the kitchen until Bucky banished him. Because of the agreed moratorium on phones and TV, he was left with nothing to do, and resorted to reading on the couch while Bucky finished up.

"Okay, you can come back," Bucky called, putting plates on the table.

Steve scrambled up and kissed Bucky on the cheek before they sat down. Bucky chuckled and poured wine, then lifted his glass. "To being trailblazers," he said. Steve had passed along what Peggy had told him that morning.

"Trailblazers," Steve echoed. They ate in silence for a little while. Then Steve said, "We'll be okay."

"Of course," Bucky said, nodding. "I love you. The rest is...superfluous."

"Ooh, fifty cent word," Steve said, raising an eyebrow. "I love you too."

Bucky shook his head and smiled. "Just eat your breadsticks before I take them, Rogers."

* * *

The next day, the news embargo was lifted, but Steve spent the morning obsessively cleaning instead. Having Bucky spend time here was one thing—he wasn't scared about impressing him anymore. But having Bucky's  _ sister _ here was different.

Bucky read enough of the news for both of them, perched on the couch while Steve vacuumed and dusted around him. "The  _ New York Times _ has a  _ super _ fun thinkpiece on toxic masculinity in professional sports," he said as Steve whisked past him with Pledge spray in one hand and a rag in the other. "'Odds are good that Mr. Rogers and Mr. Barnes are far from the first gay baseball players, and probably are not even the first baseball players to fraternize with each other, but the macho culture of baseball likely prevented these players from being open with their identities until now.'"

"Literally no fucking shit," Steve muttered.

"My thoughts exactly," Bucky said with a derisive snort. "Also, what's with the 'mister' thing?"

"It's a little NYT quirk," Steve said. "It's like a respect thing, I think."

"It's stupid." Bucky kept scrolling. "Most of the stuff is good, Peggy was right. Fox is obviously being weird, and Twitter in general is a cesspit, but scrolling through our hashtag is pretty nice."

"That's good to know." Steve turned his attention to scrubbing the kitchen faucet.

"Come on, Becca's not gonna look at the sink," Bucky called across the room.

"Maybe I just want to clean! Maybe it has nothing to do with Becca!"

"I've never once seen you dust before today, Steven."

"Oh, so you've picked up the 'Steven' thing from Peggy now, have you?"

They continued to bicker good-naturedly all day, and just as the afternoon started to wane, Bucky got a text from Becca that she was on her way. 

Steve stayed behind and bounced on his feet as Bucky went downstairs to get his sister. He wasn't sure why he was so nervous, but he certainly got a newfound appreciation for why Bucky had been so uncomfortably tense when Peggy and Angie had come to visit.

The door opened and Bucky led his sister in. Becca swept in, and Steve had to take a beat to look at her. It was like he was looking at Bucky, just slightly warped—they had the same nose, the same cheekbones. But her other features were a little softer, and she was both shorter and more willowy than her brother. Her hair, a few shades lighter than Bucky's, was up in a bun, and she was wearing a faded flannel shirt that rather looked like she'd stolen it from Bucky.

She turned to Steve and grinned, and it looked the same as Bucky's. He mentally shook himself and went over to shake her hand. "Hi, I'm Steve," he said, looking at her eyes that were Bucky's eyes.

"Hi, Steve," Becca said. She lifted her other hand, revealing a six-pack. "Want some beer?"

A few minutes later they were lounging on Steve's couch, and Becca was regaling them with stories from her internship that summer. "Flying all across the country every few days isn't all it's cracked up to be," she said, shaking her head.

"You're tellin' me," Bucky said. His accent came out stronger when he talked to his sister. "Steve an' I are literally always on planes."

"Oh, yeah, your life is so hard," Becca said. She rolled her eyes. "You make millions of dollars a year playing a game that five-year-olds play. It's a career for boys who never grew up."

"Hey, that career is what put you through college," Bucky said, shaking his finger at her like an eighty-year-old.

"C'mon, not the old 'if I didn't play baseball we'd still be poor' speech." But Becca was laughing.

Watching them together, Steve felt a sudden pang of loneliness. He'd been alone most of his childhood, and when his parents had passed, he'd been alone basically until he'd met Peggy. And even once he'd had Peggy, he'd somewhat lost her thanks to baseball. In fact, he'd essentially been all alone until this season.

If the Barnes siblings noticed his silence and slightly morose energy, neither of them commented on it. Steve brightened up again once Becca revealed that she'd also brought pizza, which they ate on the couch (but still with plates, at Steve's insistence) while watching some cooking show that Becca was into these days. 

Steve did the dishes after, leaving Bucky and Becca to keep catching up. His sudden retroactive sadness over his sibling-less life had receded, and he listened to them laugh from the couch with a smile. He hadn't seen Bucky look this carefree in days. 

Becca left pretty soon after that, citing a need to be up early for another flight to another conference the next day. She accepted a kiss on the forehead from Bucky as she headed out. "Nice to meet you, Steve!" she chirped, waving from the doorway. 

"Nice to meet you too," he said, waving back. She closed the door behind her.

Bucky turned to him with a grin and relaxed shoulders. "So?" he asked.

"So, what?" Steve reflexively reached out and tucked Bucky into his chest in a loose hug. 

"Well, I can't date people who don't like my sister, so I have to know if you like her or not," Bucky said. He was clearly teasing, his eyes dancing with mirth.

"That's a lot of pressure." Steve snorted. "Of course I like Becca. I feel like I'd already met her, since you talk about her so damn much."

"Oh haha," Bucky grumbled, pulling away from Steve to flop back down on the couch. "If you had a sister, I'm sure you'd talk about her too."

Steve paused for a heartbeat, remembering his flash of loneliness from earlier. "I'm sure you're right," he said. He shook it off before Bucky could notice and sat next to him on the couch, where the situation quickly devolved once Bucky pulled him in for a deep, lingering kiss.

* * *

The next day was the start of pre-playoff practices. The regular season was over, and teams across the country were either packing it up for the winter or getting ready to play well into October. Wild Card games started that Wednesday, and proper playoffs started that weekend—the Dodgers had four days to get themselves ready for the ALDS.

But Bucky and Steve stayed in Steve's apartment, per Nat's instructions. Steve watched on the team's official Instagram as their teammates gathered for a lowkey day of drills, and he and Bucky weren't there.

Around noon, Nat called them. "Sorry I didn't have you come in today," she said as soon as Steve put the phone on speaker.

"It's okay," Bucky said, scrolling through Twitter while Steve held the phone. "We get it."

"I just wanted to make sure everyone was clear on what was happening—press, teammates, everybody."

"Really, Nat, it's fine," Steve said. "How're things?"

"Things are okay. The Rumlow issue is dying down, so we won't have to worry about it unless we meet them in the World Series. Everybody's kind of adjusting to the news about you two, but it's still gonna be weird—the good news is that in the time you've been out of the public eye, the vitriol has died down somewhat. Now it's just more normal weirdness."

"Cool, so not outright homophobia, just the thinly-veiled kind. Cute," Bucky said. 

"Yeah." Nat sighed. "I'm doing my best here, but there's only so much."

"It's fine," Steve said quickly. "We can't stay off the field much longer anyway, and even if we were to hide for the rest of playoffs, this shit wouldn't go away."

"That's true enough," Nat said, and Bucky nodded. "So I want you two here tomorrow for practice. We've got playoff games to win, and that's what's most important."

"You got it," Steve said, grinning in spite of himself.

Bucky was too. "We'll see you tomorrow," he said to the phone. 

"Oh! One more thing." Nat's tone brightened considerably. "I've had some extensive talks with Pepper and Nick. We're going through with the plan to oust Sitwell, and Pepper says she'd bet good money that she'll get the other owners on board."

"That's great," Steve said. 

"I hope she's right," Bucky said, his eyebrows furrowed in a warily hopeful expression. 

"This isn't her first rodeo," Nat said. "And like me, her priority is to protect her players. Also, she said she has a theory as to why Sitwell might be so reticent to go after the Hydras right now, outside of his friendship with Pierce."

"Oh?" Bucky tilted his head.

"Money. A World Series with the LA Hydras would be very lucrative—they have a wide market and a youthful fanbase. If the Hydras get to the World Series, and if they do well, the Commission will benefit. Which means Sitwell will benefit."

Bucky made an ugly snorting noise. "Selfish, greedy bastard," he muttered.

"That's good fodder for Pepper to use when she goes after him," Steve said.

"It sure is." Nat paused. "By the way, at this point, a World Series between the Hydras and  _ us _ would be the  _ most _ lucrative situation. The rivalry Rumlow almost single-handedly created…"

"That's interesting," Steve murmured. Bucky just shook his head.

"Anyway, that's all I've got for you. None of this matters right now, like Bucky pointed out. Let's just focus on the games in front of us."

"You got it, Nat," Steve said.

"See you tomorrow." Bucky reached over and hung up for them. "Is it weird that it makes me feel guilty to know that we'd be lining Sitwell's pockets if we make it to the World Series?" he asked.

"No," Steve said. "But that's a secondary issue. We're gonna get to the World Series for us, and for our team. That's all that matters."

Bucky nodded, taking a deep breath. "You're right." He leaned in to kiss Steve, a quick warm thing, then said, "Let's get down to business, then."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last update before the final chapter + epilogue go up together next week. Get excited!!  
> One thing before that happens: I'm about to make playoffs seem quick and relatively easy, which they are not. It's a daily slog for like a month, as it requires at least 11 wins to get thru every round. It's full of late nights, emotional highs and lows, etc. But writing about every game these dudes play in the playoffs would be boring as hell, so we're kind of gonna put it on fast forward. So be ready for that!  
> As always, let me know if you have questions, and see y'all next week. :)


	13. Playoffs

The playoffs started in earnest that Friday. If Steve had thought that the lead-up to the four game series with the Jays to clinch their division had been tense, it was nothing compared to the week of prep as they prepped for the ALDS.

As it happened, once the Wild Card games were played, their ALDS opponent was to be the Blue Jays. 

Once all the numbers settled out, the Dodgers were guaranteed to have home field advantage for the first two rounds of playoffs. Depending on their World Series opponent, if they got that far, they might or might not get the same edge. Steve's stomach sank when he realized that if they ended up playing the Hydras, a very likely outcome at this point, they would  _ not _ have home field advantage.

The Dodgers went into Friday with high hopes and nervous confidence. They came out the other side on Tuesday having absolutely flattened the Jays, three games to zero. They had another champagne party in Toronto after the third game, and Steve and Bucky made out in the showers.

(As the team slogged through the wins, Steve absently noted that somewhere in his brain, he had expected a lukewarm response to his and Bucky's field appearances from fans in the seats. He was pleasantly surprised to find that they sounded perfectly normal. It was gratifying, and a bit uplifting, he had to admit.)

Then they moved on to the ALCS the next weekend, playing the Houston Astros in a seven game series. That one took a little longer to get through, but they still clinched it in five games. Once again, the team doused each other in champagne, and Steve and Bucky "celebrated" in the Astros' clubhouse.

They came back to New York after that to practice for the World Series. Steve could hardly believe they were actually going to a World Series—the final playoff stop, their final obstacle. 

The blur of the first two rounds had actually been a tough, tooth-and-nail crawl, game-by-game. Late nights, intense highs and lows, a constant emotional roller coaster and a lot of expended energy. But it all fell away compared to the looming final round.

The NLCS was still being decided. The day they won the ALCS was only the fourth game of the NLCS. The Dodgers practiced at Ebbets and kept an eye on the NLCS, waiting to see who their opponent would be.

It was a tense experience. The NLCS was the LA Hydras vs. the Milkuakee Brewers, and they all knew who they'd prefer to have win.

On the fourth day after they'd won the ALCS, Steve and Bucky spent the evening at Bucky's apartment. It was the seventh game of the NLCS that night, the last one, winner-take-all. The Brewers had put up a hell of a fight, more than anybody had ever expected. But none of that would matter if the Hydras won tonight.

Steve made sure Bucky ate as he watched the game, eyes glued to the screen, tense. Steve could feel in his gut as he watched that he knew what was going to happen, but Bucky was clearly holding out hope that it wouldn't. 

But it did. Justin Hammer, of all people, hit a two-run home run in the eighth inning that the Brewers just didn't have the energy to match. Bucky held out to the very last out, at which point he sagged into the couch with a loud groan. 

"It's okay," Steve said automatically, turning off the TV before they had to see any interviews with the Hydras players.

"It's not." Bucky dragged his hands down his face. "This is gonna  _ suck _ ."

"It's not gonna suck!" Steve wrapped his hands around Bucky's wrists and tugged him up, looking him earnestly in the eye. "This is the  _ World Series _ ! This is about us, not the fucking Hydras. They can't spoil the fact that we're playing in the goddamn World Series, okay?"

"I guess you're right," Bucky muttered. "I just...I was so hoping I wouldn't have to deal with them. Wouldn't have to see Rumlow in person."

"We're gonna kick their asses," Steve said fervently. "And Rumlow's gonna wish he never laid a finger on you."

The corner of Bucky's mouth curled up, and he leaned in to kiss Steve. "You're hot when you're pissed off," he said.

"Oh, is that so?" Steve grinned. "That's good to know."

Bucky shook his head and reeled Steve in for a longer kiss. 

* * *

Two days later, the World Series started in LA.

Steve wasn't thrilled about starting on enemy soil, but all they had to do was keep their shit together. If they won at least one of the games in the Hydras' ballpark, they'd have a chance to finish the series on their home turf.

Just walking in was nerve-racking. Even Nat couldn't keep the hordes of press back, and the Dodgers walked into the stadium surrounded by flashing cameras and reporters, shouting questions that mostly focused on Steve and Bucky's relationship. Steve hunched his shoulders and wondered how anybody could possibly think that he and Bucky dating had anything to do with the upcoming championship series.

That night's pre-game was full of pomp and circumstance, but between the teams on the field, it was also alive with tension. Brock Rumlow was studiously avoiding everybody's gaze, but Steve was glaring daggers at him and he wasn't the only one. The rest of the Dodgers had been growing all the more enraged over recent weeks, and Steve could tell from their behavior and their dedicated level of play throughout playoffs so far that they were itching to leap to their teammates' defense. Steve couldn't help being touched by this. 

And Steve's animosity wasn't only reserved for Rumlow—he remembered the other names from Bucky's stories, and he picked them out of the Hydras' lineup. Grant Ward, Heinrich Zemo, Erik Stevens. (And Alexander Pierce, lurking in the dugout.) But then again, all of them were complicit, and Steve knew it. And more importantly for this series, all of them were full of extra, illegal testosterone. 

Luke started, and he pitched with a powerful, controlled fury that bewildered and stymied the frustrated Hydras' batters. The few times that any Hydra managed to put a bat on a ball, the rest of the Dodgers were moving in perfect sync to keep them from getting past second base. It was like a perfectly orchestrated dance, with Bucky calling the shots from behind the plate. And with it, the team easily put up enough runs that even when Luke had to come out in the seventh and the Hydras were finally able to score a couple of times of bullpen pitchers, they still kept a decent enough lead that Steve didn't even need to warm up. They won handily, 6-2.

The whole team left the park in a sort of huddle that night with Steve and Bucky in the center, through unspoken agreement. Steve only relaxed when the door to the hotel room the two of them were sharing closed behind them.

The next night, game two, was much the same. The Hydras' home crowd was significantly more hostile, but the Dodgers played well, refusing to cave under pressure. The Dodgers' offense racked up hit after hit and took an early 2-0 lead. Miles pitched that night, and he pitched four no-hit innings before Grant Ward finally eked out a single. When Rumlow hit a deep line drive to follow it, Clint made an impressive acrobatic catch in left, leaping like a ballet dancer. That shut down any hopes of a rally, and after that, the rest of the game seemed to quickly drain away and the Dodgers won 4-0.

That night, they were on a plane back to New York. Steve's spirits soared as they flew, with Bucky asleep on his shoulder, exhausted from the intense play the last couple of nights. Steve felt bad that he hadn't been able to help his team take such a commanding 2-0 lead in the series, but it was good that he hadn't been needed. Bucky, on the other hand, was always needed. 

They had the next day off to recover from travel, and Bucky slept some more. Steve let him—he wasn't just tired from play, but from the unfriendly environment in LA. As he sat in the kitchen and watched the city out the window, Steve worried that tonight would hardly be an improvement.

He was wrong. The third game went, if possible, even better than the last two. Shaken from the decisive first two losses, the Hydras came into Ebbets angry and dumb, swinging at bad pitches from Danny and making stupid base-running errors. Even with fairly sloppy pitching, the Dodgers won handily: 5-1. 

Nat gathered them in the clubhouse once the game was over. The room vibrated with excitement—they were so  _ fucking close _ . They were up 3-0 in the World Series, they were just one win away from the trophy, the championship. Nat's expression was pleased and proud, but her words were cautionary. "Don't let your guard down," she said warningly. "Plenty of teams have been up by three in the World Series and then gotten swept the rest of the games. This third loss may be all it takes for the Hydras to wake up and actually play baseball, so keep your focus. One game at a time, one play at a time, okay?"

"Okay," they echoed back.

Bucky came back to Steve's place again that night, and neither of them could really settle. It felt like they should be back on the field, finishing this thing out. "How are you feeling?" Steve asked Bucky, for what was probably the millionth time since the series had started.

"I'm okay," Bucky said, the same response as all the other times. "I just want to win."

The next day dawned bright and a little cold; October would be over soon, and one way or another, so would playoffs.

As soon as he stepped on the field, Steve knew today would be different than the first three games. The Hydras seemed sharper and more focused. Nat had been right—the third loss had woken them up. They were playing for their lives now, so to speak. The Dodgers could theoretically afford to lose this game if it came to that, but the Hydras had no more losses left.

Peter Quill started tonight's game, which Steve thought was an odd choice. If it were him, he would have started Luke again, as he'd had sufficient rest since his last start and they had nowhere left to go after this series. If he was tired after this, he'd have months to rest. 

He ended up being right. Peter barely lasted four innings.

The game was brutal and strange. The Dodgers and Hydras traded runs as pitchers got battered left and right, and the night stretched long as Pierce and Nat kept calling for new arms from the bullpen. 

Finally, the top of the ninth inning rolled around with the Dodgers clinging to a barely-there lead of 6-5. Steve, who'd been warming up for a few innings now, knew that this would be his first time pitching in the series, and he swallowed a sudden surge of nerves. He needed to be solid for his team tonight.

He jogged out to the mound, where he was met by Bucky. "Nice to have you participate," Bucky said jokingly. His mask was like a halo on his head, gleaming under the stadium lights.

"I'm always glad to chip in," Steve said. "It feels different out on the field."

"Not surprising. We're literally...we're three outs away. We're so close." Bucky eyes shone. "We gotta bear down now. Let's go."

"Let's go," Steve agreed, punching out his glove. 

The first batter up was Zemo, and Steve struck him out with a ruthless efficiency spurred by Bucky's laser-focus. 

And then Rumlow came up to bat.

The last three games, all of the Hydras had kept to themselves when possible. Both teams had been bristling with barely-concealed antipathy, but nobody had acted on it. Not even Rumlow, who had kept up his disciplined and consistent practice of pretending Bucky was not there when he could do so. Steve had assumed that he was acting on Pierce's orders.

This time, something was different. Maybe it was Steve being on the mound. Maybe it was the Hydras being just two outs away from losing the World Series. Whatever it was, as Rumlow swung his bat onto his shoulder and dug into the batter's box, he leaned down and muttered something to Bucky.

Steve couldn't hear the words from sixty feet away, but he heard the tone, and he saw Bucky flinch, his eyes widening behind his mask. And just then, the stadium fell away, and Steve didn't care anymore about winning or anything else besides the two men in front of him. When Bucky shakily signaled for a pitch, Steve didn't even nod. He just wound up and threw a blistering fastball, straight at Rumlow.

Rumlow didn't have enough time to get out of the way, but he twisted so it hit his back instead of his chest. It still caught his ribs with a loud  _ thwap _ , and the whole stadium seemed to go quiet for a moment.

Then Rumlow threw his bat down and pointed at Steve, his face contorted with rage. "What the fuck?" he shouted, this time easily loud enough for Steve to hear. "Fuck you!"

"Fuck you too!" Steve shouted back, throwing his arms out. "Don't you fucking talk to my goddamn catcher, you piece of shit!"

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Rumlow demanded, beginning to stalk down the first base line. "Did you throw at me on purpose, you fucking psycho?" Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw Bucky get up slowly, as if in a trance, and begin to follow Rumlow, as if trying to make sure he stayed on course. The umpire was going too, looking troubled, as if he was trying to decide what to do and who to punish.

"What the fuck is wrong with  _ you _ ? Douchebag," Steve snapped. "And no," he lied, "because I don't throw at batters hitting below .180!"

Rumlow's lip curled in a wordless snarl, and he turned from the base path, beginning to cross the grass. He was charging the mound. Steve tensed, readying himself for a fight.

Then Bucky was in Rumlow's way, pushing him back, away from Steve. Rumlow looked at him, surprised, and Bucky reached up and shoved his glove in his face.

Finally, that sparked the tinderbox of tension that had been waiting to light. On his periphery, Steve was aware of every player on the field running to join them, of the dugouts and benches emptying. Ignoring this, Steve sprinted over to where Bucky and Rumlow were now locked in a shoving match and bodily yanked Rumlow off of Bucky. They were quickly joined by their other teammates and Hydras players, eager to vent their pent up aggression.

It was ugly. Other baseball fights started because of stupid shit, but the bad blood between these two teams was based in real life events. Steve saw, in the confused waves of motion, that Frank had somehow sprinted in from the bullpen and was pummeling Ward, actively trying to beat the snot out of him. Tony had Justin Hammer in a headlock. T'Challa had pinned Erik Stevens to the ground and ripped his uniform. 

And Steve, who still had his hands on Rumlow, fell on him, a fierce satisfaction welling up under his sternum as he rained blows down on Rumlow's head and chest.

Then, as quickly as it had started, it stopped. Someone grabbed Steve around the shoulders and pulled him up—when he twisted around to look, he saw that it was Sam. The umpires got in the middle of the worst scuffles, yanking players apart and pushing them in opposite directions. Coaches and managers milled about, talking urgently to players and trying to calm people down. 

The blood roared in Steve's ears. As far as he was concerned, this was a long time coming. The rising bruises that he could see on Rumlow's face did not contradict his opinion. 

Then Nat was in front of him, looking furious. "You're a fucking idiot," she said, although her tone held little actual venom. "Did you stop to think that maybe  _ winning _ would be a pretty satisfying 'fuck you' to Rumlow? Or did you think  _ at all _ before you whipped a fastball at him?"

"Be glad I didn't go for his head," Steve spat back, still thrumming with adrenaline.

"Jesus Christ." Nat turned and stalked away, and Sam finally let go of Steve, looking just as angry as he felt. 

Bucky appeared in front of him. His mask and helmet had gotten lost somewhere in the fight, and he looked battered and rumpled, but his eyes were bright. Still, he didn't say anything about the throw or Rumlow, just: "The umps are meeting with Nat and Pierce. They're gonna start handing out ejections."

He was right. A few minutes later, after a brief consultation with the managers, the chief umpire announced that Steve, Bucky, Rumlow, and Frank were all ejected from tonight's game. 

Still breathing heavily, Steve allowed himself to be herded into the dugout with his teammates. He watched absently as Morita quickly strapped on catcher's gear and went out to meet Luis, the only bullpen pitcher who hadn't been used tonight and who wasn't ejected. 

He looked around at his teammates. All of their eyes were bright and angry. Tony kept opening and closing one of his fists. Frank's nose was gently dripping blood, but he hadn't seemed to notice. And Bucky...Bucky was leaning against the dugout fence, his catcher's gear still on. Steve couldn't see his face.

The game ended quickly after that. The Hydras, fueled by anger, struck hard and took back the lead. Poor Luis couldn't do anything about it, and when it was the Dodgers turn to hit in the bottom of the ninth, nobody was focused enough to mount any sort of offense.

When it was over, Nat rounded them all up in the clubhouse, her eyes alight with rage. "We just had the World Series in the palm of our hand," she said, her voice low and dangerous. "And now the Hydras have a rallying point because we let personal grudges get in the way."

"They had it coming," Tony called, his tone harsh. "We're still up 3-1, who gives a shit about one loss?"

"Don't be stupid," Nat said sharply. "Steve could get suspended because of his behavior tonight, as could Bucky and Frank. And then where will we be?"

"Nat's right," Steve said, against his gut instinct. "I made a stupid decision in the heat of the moment. It won't happen again."

"It better not." Nat relaxed slightly. "But...it was awesome." She smirked as the clubhouse filled with laughter, some of the excess energy burning off a little. "Go home. Chill the fuck out. Come back tomorrow ready to actually win—that'll be a better revenge."

A murmur of assent went up, and the group dispersed. Steve went to his locker but found he couldn't open it. His hands were still shaking. Then Bucky appeared next to him and said softly, "Here," opening it for him. 

Steve wordlessly changed into his blue Dodgers hoodie, and Bucky followed suit. They quietly left together, heading to Steve's place. Once they were inside, Steve turned to look at Bucky. "Are you mad at me?" he asked quietly.

"No," Bucky said immediately, looking up at him with a blazing gaze. "It was stupid, and hotheaded, but I'm glad you did it."

Steve stared at him for a moment, then leaned in for a hard, fast kiss. He tasted blood, and pulled back, alarmed. "Are you bleeding?"

"No, you are." Bucky poked the edge of Steve's mouth, and his finger came away red. "You split your lip fighting with Rumlow."

"Oh." Steve dabbed at it. "How awesome did it feel to stick your glove in Rumlow's face?"

"So awesome." Bucky grinned, lighting up like Steve hadn't seen in weeks. "I told you, didn't I? I said I wouldn't let a batter charge you."

Steve smiled. "You did, didn't you?" He kissed Bucky again, more gently this time. "I love you," he said when he pulled away.

"I love you too," Bucky said readily. "Now, c'mon, we better get some sleep. We have a championship to win tomorrow."

* * *

As it turned out, Nat hadn't needed to worry—no suspensions came down from the Commissioner's office. Steve suspected that it was because Sitwell was a coward, but he wasn't going to complain.

Up three games to one, the Dodgers worked against excited, nervous energy to focus on pre-game practices. Steve threw with Morita and the other bullpen pitchers and watched Luke warm up with Bucky—Nat had made the decision Steve had anticipated, that Luke should pitch again. He looked tired, but determined.

He took the mound hours later, as the sun was setting over Brooklyn. Steve sat in the bullpen with his fellow relievers and watched the field closely, searching for any sign of the aggression shown by the Hydras players last night. But everybody seemed civil, if on edge. The Hydras, just like last night, were fighting for their lives. Steve did not envy them.

Bucky, a tiny speck from where Steve sat behind the outfield, looked almost relaxed as he caught for Luke. Steve wondered if last night's fight had finally broken the tension he carried when he was around the Hydras.

Luke pitched a quality start, only letting two runs squeak by him over a six run period. The Dodgers managed twice that in the same amount of time, and once the two starting pitchers were pulled, the relief staff kept things shut down. Steve was warming up by the end of the seventh inning.

The slim lead remained the same going into the top of the ninth, and Steve ran out onto the field to meet Bucky on the mound. Just like last night, his mask was pushed up on his head and he looked radiant in the bright lights—but this time, somehow, his eyes were even brighter. "This is it," he said quietly, tapping Steve on the shoulder with his glove. "I can feel it."

"Me too," Steve said. His lungs felt too big for his ribcage. This moment didn't feel real. They could not possibly be three outs away from winning the World Series. They were so goddamn close that he could taste it. He looked at Bucky, under the stadium lights, and felt a well of emotion rise up that he just couldn't give voice to. "Let's do it."

Bucky grinned. "Let's do it."

He went back to the plate and crouched, settling into the dirt. The first batter stepped up, somebody Steve didn't really recognize. It didn't matter. He just wound up and threw.

The batter swung and hit a weak grounder to Sam, who scooped it and easily lobbed it to Rhodey for a quick out. Steve caught the ball as the Hydras player jogged back to the dugout, feeling the knot in his gut ratchet slightly tighter.  _ One out closer _ .

The next batter took some more doing, but with some patience from Bucky and concentration from Steve, they managed to strike him out. The volume in the stadium rumbled to a new level as fans realized that they were now an out away from winning. Steve could feel every eye on him, could sense the anticipation, could feel how thick the air was. The world was watching.

Rumlow stepped up to the plate.

Steve glared at him, and Bucky's shoulders got a bit rigid, but aside from a dirty look at the both of them, Rumlow did nothing but put the bat on his shoulder. Steve forced himself to focus. Any emotion toward Rumlow right now was unproductive.

Bucky called for a curveball. Steve threw it. Rumlow swung and missed. Strike one.

Call for another curveball, this one more inside. Steve threw. Rumlow let it go. Ball one.

Fastball. Throw. Swing and a foul tip. Strike two.

Changeup, low. Throw. No swing. Ball two.

Curveball, outside. Throw. No swing. Ball three.

A bead of sweat ran down the back of Steve's neck. Somehow, it always came back to this. A full count. Nowhere else to go.

Bucky's eyes were hot and heavy on Steve's. Time for the payoff pitch.

Bucky signaled for a fastball. Right down the middle. Steve nodded and threw it. Rumlow flinched, then swung—too late. The ball hit Bucky's glove.

The stadium erupted. The wall of noise hit Steve like it was a physical thing. Bucky sprang up from the dirt and threw his mask and helmet off, sprinting at Steve full tilt with the ball still in his glove. Steve was ready for him, his arms up in the air, and he caught Bucky as he leaped up, legs wrapping around Steve's hips. Bucky was yelling in his ear as he hugged Steve, but before Steve could figure out what he was saying, the rest of the team collided with them. 

They became one giant mass of sweat and ecstasy, bouncing up and down on the grass and screaming incoherently. Steve saw flashes of his teammates—Pietro giddily grinning as Clint smacked his back, Tony tearing up as Rhodey crushed him in a hug, Sam smiling like a thousand-watt bulb. And through it all, Steve refused to let go of Bucky.

Nat came out onto the field, grinning and cheering. "We did it!" she yelled at Steve, the first words he'd managed to decipher from anybody so far. "How does it feel?"

Steve just shook his head, still buzzing, and Nat laughed before she got swept away by the crowd.

Bucky tugged on Steve's arm, and Steve turned to look at him. He was beaming, and he wordlessly held out his glove with the ball still in it. 

Steve picked it up and rolled it over in his hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the trophy glittering as it was wheeled out. It would be presented to the Dodgers within minutes. His teammates were a sea of bodies around him, loud and elated.

And within that unimpeachably perfect moment, Steve could think of only one thing to do. He wrapped his hand around the back of Bucky's head and drew him into a long kiss. 

When they broke apart, Bucky leaned his head against Steve's and said hoarsely, "You just kissed me in front of tens of thousands of people and a billion TV cameras."

Steve smiled at him. "Yeah. Wanna see me do it again? We just won the  _ fucking _ World Series, they can't touch us."

Bucky hummed contentedly. "I love you."

"I love you too." With the World Series trophy ten feet away and the game-winning ball in his hand, Steve kissed Bucky again, in front of God and everybody, feeling like his chest was going to burst. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for the epilogue, comin' right up! All I've got for you here is that Bucky pushing his glove into Rumlow's face is based on a true event in which Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek shoving his glove in Alex Rodriguez's face.


	14. Off-Season (Epilogue)

**_The New York Times_ **

_ Brooklyn Throws Championship Parade for Dodgers _

Oct. 30, 2020

Brooklyn celebrates the World Series-winning Dodgers in the streets today with a parade that shut down traffic for miles. Thousands of fans crowded into the packed streets to see the Dodgers players and their trophy ride by, in a celebratory atmosphere that has not faded in the city since the Dodgers' decisive win three nights ago.

The Commissioner's trophy was passed between many players on different cars and floats during the parade, but notably spent a lot of time with Steve Rogers and James Barnes, who have been making history with their relationship this baseball season.

The championship win caps a long postseason during which the Dodgers lost only three games, after clinching their division with 102 wins. The celebration of the win is expected to last a few more weeks, with many stops planned for the Dodgers and the trophy, but already fans are beginning to ask if this momentum can be carried into next year, and maybe a repeat World Series win.

_ [ _ _ Keep Reading _ _ for more] _

* * *

**_Out_ **

_ Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes Get Real About Being Gay Baseball Stars _

Nov. 16th, 2020

[... _ Article clipped for length. Below is only an excerpt: click  _ _ here _ _ for more _ .]

**Barnes** : We never really anticipated coming out so suddenly, but we weren't totally unprepared. We had already discussed it with our manager, Natasha Romanoff, and our teammates. And they all really helped us with the...response.

**Rogers** : We weren't surprised by the backlash, so much, but it's still never fun to hear those sorts of things. We were impressed by the outpouring of support, from a lot of unexpected places.

**Barnes** : Yeah, we were pleasantly surprised by that. Or at least, I was.  _ [Laughs] _

**Rogers** : Things just kinda snowballed, and now here we are. Of course, we knew the stakes—

**Barnes** : Yeah, like, we knew sort of how "historic" we would be—God, I don't like that word. But we did, even if we didn't really plan things out. Or want make history. 

**Rogers** : We really didn't. For us, it's really about baseball, not anything else. We're players first.  _ [Barnes nods] _ Baseball isn't just our job, it's what we love, and we were really fortunate on getting to join our teammates in winning the World Series this year. And we're not going anywhere.

**Barnes** : No, we're not. We'll be back and looking for a repeat win with the Dodgers this season. 

**Rogers** : All that being said, we're glad that we could start to pave the way for normalizing gay men playing professional sports. It's an area that's been neglected for awhile.

**Barnes** : Yeah. If anything, our point is that it should be  _ totally _ normalized—we don't care, you shouldn't either. We're gay and we play baseball, and that's it.

* * *

**_AP News_ **

_ MLB Commissioner Jasper Sitwell is Voted Out; Investigation into Hydras Misconduct Expected Under New Commissioner _

Dec. 14th, 2020

At the owners meeting this weekend to discuss MLB commissioner Jasper Sitwell's contract, the owners of the thirty Major League Baseball teams voted to remove him as commissioner. The move comes after heavy lobbying by Dodgers owner Virginia "Pepper" Potts, who cited Sitwell's behavior regarding an incident between a Hydras player and two Dodgers players in late September as her reason to have him removed.

"Jasper has showed himself to be unfit to lead the Major Leagues in this era," Potts said Sunday. "I believe, and my fellow owners have shown that they agree, that his shortcomings must be corrected."

Another vote will be held tomorrow to confirm Sitwell's replacement, but all expectations currently stand that he will be succeeded by Carol Danvers, part-owner of the Washington Nationals and previous communications officer for the Commission. She will be the first ever female commissioner, if the voting goes as expected. 

Danvers, who served in the Air Force and only joined the world of executive baseball after both she and her wife Maria Rambeau retired, said that she looks forward to the position. "Baseball needs some new blood at the helm," she said Sunday after Sitwell was removed. "I'd love to help shake things up."

She says that one of her first acts would be to open a wide-reaching investigation into the strong allegations from James Barnes of the Dodgers that the LA Hydras have been involved in a cheating scandal with performance-enhancing drugs. Sitwell refused to open this same investigation after Barnes went public with his allegations, drawing widespread criticism and possibly leading to his being voted out. 

"Steroids are not tolerated in baseball, and it's frankly outrageous that Sitwell didn't look into this properly when it was brought to him," Danvers said. "We'll see how it goes, but based on current evidence, I expect to sanction the entire organization and expel a few players from the League."

This warning from Danvers comes after Alexander Pierce, manager of the Hydras, bowed to criticism and resigned two weeks ago. Additionally, caving to public pressure, one of Sitwell's last acts in office was to place Brock Rumlow on indefinite suspension.

"If the Hydras have been cheating, we'll find out and deal with it accordingly," Danvers said. "I'm just glad the organization is starting to take some action themselves as well."

Danvers became a visible choice for the position thanks to further lobbying from Potts, but many say her popularity as a candidate did not only stem from the Dodgers' owner. With the recent coming out of the Dodgers' Steve Rogers and James Barnes, some speculate that the owners wanted to put an LGBT person into the highest office of baseball as good PR.

"If that's the case, that's fine," Danvers said when asked about this speculation. "I think there should definitely be more gay people involved with institutions like baseball. And if I can somehow make life easier for gay players like Steve and Bucky, I'll be glad to do so."

_ [ _ _ Keep Reading _ _ for more] _

* * *

**_New York Times_ **

_ After Second World Series Win for the Dodgers in 3 Years, Steve Rogers and James Barnes Announce Upcoming Marriage in the Off-Season _

Nov. 3rd, 2022

Six days after the Dodgers won their second World Series in three years, Steve Rogers and James Barnes have announced that they will be getting married sometime in the off-season, once again blazing a historical path for gay players of professional sports.

The two made international waves when they were revealed to be dating during the 2020 season, and have continued to make headlines for their staunch devotion to being role models and advocates for LGBT acceptance in the world of sports. Their marriage will set yet another first: after being not only the first openly gay Major League baseball players but also the first to be in a relationship, they will become the first to wed.

Mr. Rogers and Mr. Barnes have reiterated that their intention is not to make history, and yet they continue to do so. When asked if he was more excited about the most recent World Series win or the wedding, Mr. Barnes' response was instant: "The win. I've known I was going to marry Steve for awhile now, but you never know when you're gonna win the World Series."

The win comes after a long but successful season for the Dodgers, which itself came after a shaky 2021 season that saw the Dodgers only to the first round of playoffs. Winning two World Series titles so close together is rare, but the Dodgers seemed to hit a groove this July and never slowed down.

Mr. Rogers and Mr. Barnes have yet to disclose the date of the wedding, but have announced that their team will be invited to the occasion. Speculation is that team manager Natasha Romanoff may officiate the ceremony, but there has been no confirmation yet. Another rumor is that prominent Boston prosecutor Margaret Carter may be filling this duty due to her close personal relationship with Mr. Rogers.

As a married couple next season, Mr. Barnes and Mr. Rogers will continue to set historical precedents around the world. "And we're looking for the repeat we didn't get last season," Mr. Barnes said, "so look out. Steve and I and the rest of the Dodgers are coming for you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so so much for reading everybody! I hope you all had a wonderful time, I know I did. Even now that it's complete, I'll keep answering questions and stuff as necessary. Thank you again! Love you all :)


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